Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website design

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by steve » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:30 pm

Jon wrote:
Young Earth Creationism ignores the fact that leg buds form in embryos of whales, that nostrils form then migrate and fuse on top of the head to form a blowhole...
I have always found facts like these (even the whole theory of embryonic recapitulation) quite fascinating, but I never saw how they served as evidence for evolution (or any other theory) or correspond to anything evolution would predict. I am not very knowledgeable about genetics, so I am asking to be educated.

Does the correspondence of these embryonic anomalies to earlier phases of the development of a given species have a logical explanation? When examining evolutionists' claims, I try to be open-minded, and, as much as possible,view evidence from the standpoint of one who believes in evolution. Even when I do so, I cannot see what there is in the theory, or in what little I know of genetics, that would predict that a creature which developed from some previous species would, for some reason, recapitulate the fetal development of the ancestral species, which no longer exists.

There are many things in this realm above my pay grade, but I would appreciate someone explaining this to me in layman's terms (which seems to be your specialty). I am assuming that the DNA of a given modern individual remains unchanged from its conception throughout its pre-natal development and lifetime. If the DNA of the modern species has mutated in such a way that the characteristics of the ancestral species were replaced, genetically, by the characteristics of the new one, why do those old traits remain in the DNA with sufficient dominance to show up in the fetal development, but not enough to be exhibited in the developed creature? It just doesn't seem to me that the mutation of the genes of one kind of creature into those of another kind would happen without sacrificing the original characteristics in the process.

If embryological development recapitulates the historical evolution of the individual, might the human embryo of a tall, blonde individual, be expected, at certain points in its pre-natal development, to bear a resemblance to his stocky, black-haired great-great-grandfather, but then lose those characteristics prior to birth? If the characteristics of recent ancestors do not temporarily appear during late development, why would the human embryo be expected exhibit fishlike stages (which are ancestrally far more remote)?

And if the embryo does go through all of its ancestral stages en route to its modern form, what is it in the known laws of genetics that cause this phenomenon, or would lead one to predict that it should happen? Does the human baby in the womb, at some point prior to birth, resemble a creature covered with body hair? Do the embryos of birds go through a stage that could be mistaken for a reptilian embryo (I'm only asking. I honestly don't know)?

If I knew enough about genetics to conclude that, even without finding confirming specimens, a geneticist would expect a creature to embryonically recapitulate its biological history and exhibit traits of former species from which it arose, it would help a great deal in allowing me to appreciate the weight of this evidence.

If creatures are designed by an intelligence, it might be impossible to predict what path and what stages an embryo might take prior to being live-born into the world. Intelligence can be whimsical—even capricious. But science is not like that. True science can make accurate predictions from what it known. Is it possible (without first examining actual embryos) for an evolutionary geneticist to predict the appearance of any given ancestral traits in an embryonic specimen? Which discovered laws of genetics make this possible? Have they ever done this?

In my understanding, embryonic recapitulation is a theory abandoned by most scientists over 80 years ago, and renounced by the likes of Stephen Jay Gould over 30 years ago. There were too many problems: e.g., the fact that the alleged "gill slits" in the human embryo proved to bear no relation to the embryonic grooves in fishes that develop into gills; that the human heart was found, in the course of gestation to develop from two chambers, to one, and then to four; by the fact that tongues exist in human babies before teeth do, while teeth are imagined to have evolved before tongues.

Perhaps none of these facts prove that one cannot find rudiments of earlier species in modern embryos, but the question that still pesters me is: What is it about laws of heredity that would cause the embryo to recapitulate early, long-defunct ancestral species?

User avatar
Paidion
Posts: 5452
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:22 pm
Location: Back Woods of North-Western Ontario

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by Paidion » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:35 pm

jon wrote:In the case of whales which I present in my first animation, there is no viable alternative theory which addresses all the facts that we find together in comparative anatomy, embryology, DNA, and the fossil record. I hear people say "Whales look like mammals because they share the same Creator" but this only addresses a few issues in comparative anatomy alone.
Comparitive anatomy. Yes! Take a look at your hand. Do you see two whale fins? I see two in each of my hands. Clearly we have evolved from whales!
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

User avatar
backwoodsman
Posts: 536
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:32 am
Location: Not quite at the ends of the earth, but you can see it from here.

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by backwoodsman » Thu Oct 16, 2014 4:29 pm

jonperry wrote:Backwoodsman, you ask:
Why do evolutionists list fact after fact as supposedly solid proof of evolution, never so much as admitting that there's a viable alternative theory, much less explaining why evolution is the better choice?
In the case of whales which I present in my first animation, there is no viable alternative theory which addresses all the facts that we find together in comparative anatomy, embryology, DNA, and the fossil record. I hear people say "Whales look like mammals because they share the same Creator" but this only addresses a few issues in comparative anatomy alone.
All of which you ascribe to evolution, for no scientific reason that you've yet presented. So it seems my question stands.

Over & over you've presented facts -- hard data that anyone can see and nobody disputes. And over & over you've insisted that those facts somehow constitute scientific proof that some species evolved into other species. What you still haven't provided is any reason whatsoever for an intelligent, intellectually honest person to believe it's true, beyond your and others' insistence. To me, it seems a very simple matter to look at such things and distinguish the hard scientific data from the ideological belief, but I can't see where you've made that distinction. Is there something I've missed?
Young Earth Creationism ignores the fact that leg buds form in embryos of whales, that nostrils form then migrate and fuse on top of the head to form a blowhole, that whales in the fossil record become more and more like land animals as you go back through the sediment layers, and that the fossil record mirrors the blowhole migration we see in embryology. It also ignores the unique similarities between whales and hippos, and It ignores the genetic evidence for a whale/hippo common ancestor.
I've never seen anyone ignore such things; they simply interpret them differently than you do. For example, I see those things as favoring the idea of a Creator who, for good reasons we don't understand and may never be able to figure out, deliberately designed them that way. If they evolved, then all that wasted effort at a very vulnerable time, when it's extremely important to survival that the embryo develop as quickly as possible, should've been genetically selected against tens of millions of years ago.
In the case of the origins of HIV, alternative theories completely failed. Creationists were so wrong about it in fact, that conservative Christian groups were actually campaigning to stop the public funding of HIV research. Luckily they backed off after it became clear that children and strait church people were getting the virus too.
Again, mutation of virii is irrelevant to the question at hand. But I think you're too young to remember any of that from having seen it as it happened. I, on the other hand, am not. The above is not what happened, at least as it relates to the overwhelming majority of either creationists or Christians. So my advice would be to be very careful that your sources aren't either skewed by their ideology, or simply misinformed themselves.
On your question "What evidence would you accept as proof that the theory of evolution is false?"

I will gladly abandon the theory evolution as soon as an alternative theory surpasses evolution in utility.
Then I'm sure you want to be very careful that you don't dismiss any theories out of hand, simply because your ideology says you must, without making every effort to give them a fair hearing on their scientific merits.

Several times you've mentioned discoveries that have been made because of evolution. It's hard to respond in any definitive way without specific examples (again, your example of a virus is irrelevant here), but I suspect what really happens in such cases is, the discoveries are made based on observable data -- that is, scientifically -- and the researchers' ideology (be it evolutionism or creationism) is irrelevant to the research or the discovery.
To get an idea of the sheer volume of discoveries evolution is leading us to right now, brows the articles of following journals which are devoted exclusively to publishing new discoveries in evolution:
I don't really have time or interest to sift through haystacks looking for needles, so let me propose another idea: Please post links to any articles you can find about discoveries that meet these qualifications: (1) were made because of scientifically proven (i.e., observed, not inferred) evolution; (2) could not have been made by the same researchers using the same methods, data set, etc., had those researchers held creationist rather than evolutionist ideology; and (3) are relevant to large (let's say, bigger than a rat) animal species evolving into distinctly different species (i.e., no virii, bacteria, etc., considering that, at least as far as physics and mathematics are concerned, some evolution can occur in such organisms). I think that's about as low as the bar can be put without compromising the scientific method.

By the way, since you like whales, here's an article you might find interesting. It's pretty short so doesn't have much detail, but it might be a good starting point for figuring out if the timeline for all those ancient whale species really adds up to what you think it does.

http://www.reasons.org/articles/explosi ... -a-creator

User avatar
jonperry
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:00 pm
Location: Corvallis Oregon
Contact:

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by jonperry » Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:01 am

Lots of great questions here. Let me do a brief sweep. I'll have to come back with more time later.

Steve,

I enjoyed reading your thoughts on embryology. Embryonic Recapitulation (the idea that animals go through every stage of evolution completely as they develop) has been set aside because it was too simplistic. It was based on a very zoomed out view of embryology, and was put together before we knew how mutations actually change the shapes of living things (actually, much of that is still being worked out).

Though a close look proves that embryos do not go through every evolutionary step as they grow, embryology is still extremely valuable as we try to figure out how specific structures evolved.

I'll do an article on the topic shortly. For now, I hope this will do:

Evolutionary theory predicts that new functional structures arise, step by step, through slight modifications of existing structures. Check out this photo of chicken embryos forming wings and I think you'll see why embryology helps validate this prediction: http://statedclearly.com/assets/img/art ... Fallon.jpg

The chicken grows fingers and then those fingers fuse together to form the last segment of the wing. This suggest that birds evolved from a 3 fingered ancestors. Alone it's not perfect evidence, it could mean lots of different things, but when embryology is combined with fossils, comparative anatomy, and genetics; other possibilities melt away before the obvious conclusion: bird wings are modified arms and claws.

Embryos get stuck building old structures because evolution is a blind and wandering process. When I was a kid I often walked to my friends house after school. One day he wanted me to play on the weekend. Cool! Unfortunately I realized I didn't know how to get to his house from mine. Instead of stopping to intelligently design an appropriate pathway, I walked a mile out of my way to the school, and then walked to his house from there. These are the kinds of energy wasting traps we would expect evolution to fall for. It does not seem to make sense in any other theory.

Please give me your thoughts on this so far. It will help me develop a proper article on the subject which I'll post here and on my site. Others have your question too I'm sure.

Paidion,

You are correct, if the only thing we knew about animals was that whales have hands and so do land mammals, I might think land mammals evolved from whales. Fortunately we have more data than that. Please watch the animation to learn more. Apparently you have not yet seen it. Either that or your are purposely cherry picking the data presented.

Backwoodsman,

I was alive during the Reagan Administration (though I was very young) and my Uncle was killed by AIDS when I was 12. I'm very familiar with the history. Jerry Falwell, a Southern Baptist preacher, was one of the loudest Creationists speaking out against spending government money on HIV research. His place on TV made him influential to the Christian right (including my family before we knew my uncle was sick). It was a political nightmare for anyone trying to get the epidemic under control.

Here's an example of a discovery made because of evolution. It seems to fit your requirements.

Modern Baleen whales don't have teeth but early fossil whale species do (and they lack all signs of baleen). Evolutionary theory tells us that baleen whales evolved from those early toothed whales. Baleen has never been known to fossilize. In modern baleen whales, however, the mouth bones have distinct groves where baleen attaches. It's a baleen fingerprint, if you will. These grooves are never found on modern toothed whales. Biologists figured that if they looked for this fingerprint in extincted toothed wales, they should be able to find examples of intermediate species; fossil species which had teeth and baleen.

They were right! http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/1/15.full

If it weren't for evolution, the baleen fingerprints would have been overlooked in toothed fossils. Someone could have stumbled upon them on accident but they would not have been guided by creationism or any other theory. If evolutionary theory didn't exist, we never would have known there was a toothed baleen whale living in the past.

This is a new discovery which (1) has been clearly observed (not inferred), baleen fingerprints and teeth are clearly there for all to see; (2) it would not have been predicted or looked for by creationist researchers; (3) whales are bigger than rats, and this is a link showing the connection between baleen whales and toothed whales. Not only are these different species, these are different suborders!

If you want a friendly overview of the many discoveries made through an appeal to evolution, I recommend reading Carl Zimmer's book Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. It's only a few hundred pages long and it perfectly answers the questions you are asking here. It shows why scientists currently chose evolution over all other theories. They accepted evolution for its utility. I highly recommend the book. It is by far my favorite short read on the subject and it doesn't have the little religion jabs in it that Dawkins' work is peppered with.
I see those things as favoring the idea of a Creator who, for good reasons we don't understand and may never be able to figure out, deliberately designed them that way.
With an appeal to Creationism alone you are correct sir, you may never be able to figure them out. That's why scientists prefer Evolution. It works! Here's an article on whale evolution by Biologos, the Bible based organization helping people accept evolution while still maintaining their faith: http://biologos.org/blog/understanding- ... evidence-1

By the way, my baleen evolution example debunks the major claim put forth in the article you posted. Your article said "When modern whales appear in the fossil record, they show up explosively with the full range of diversity for body size and dietary strategy (from carnivorous activity to filter-feeding)".

Apparently the authors of the article you posted don't read scientific journals. I can't blame them, science journals are boring. That said, if they are going to write about what scientists do, they should probably know what scientists do.

Stay curious!
Jon
Last edited by jonperry on Sun Oct 19, 2014 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
jriccitelli
Posts: 1317
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:14 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by jriccitelli » Fri Oct 17, 2014 9:25 am

I hear people say "Whales look like mammals because they share the same Creator" but this only addresses a few issues in comparative anatomy alone. (Jon)
Creationists didn’t come up with the ‘things look like things’ argument for common ancestry, that’s the overwhelming statement by Evolutionists! In fact your whole video repeats and bases its whole case on this idea, not us. We are just reminding you that the argument is not the property of evolution. Neither is natural selection, nor is survival of the fittest, these all are just as well the property of Creation and design. In fact self-improvement is also proven to be a product of design, and adaptation is more ‘likely’ an element of design than blind chance. Blind chance coupled with selection and survival is still ‘blind’ chance. Blind chance is your hypothesis, but blind chance is a very unstable way of developing a product, and not very effective in actually developing improvements (an artist should know better at trusting in blind improvements). Codes can be designed to shift enough within their own sequence and order, to purposefully create variety and adaptation, by design. Machines and computers can do this. Nothing permits this to be the sole property of chance. i believe the atom and elements themselves were designed with adaptability and ease of variability in mind.

Still all your improvements have to come from the genetic codes, not the look alike arguments, which are most often ridiculous really (birds evolved from a 3 fingered ancestors /Birds wings are modified arms and claws!) A hand looks like a fin, eggs look like eggs, and this continues into the cellular world, but this is the same thing a designed thing would exhibit.
Please watch the animation to learn more (Jon)
May I suggest looking at a documentary on the development of the radio, airplane and car, or look at a shoe catalog, variety yet similarity! it means just as much. Your videos repeat the ‘facts from thousands of observable things are related’ ‘All living things on earth are related’ This ‘fact’ means nothing, because ‘designers’ create things that look alike. The arguments for natural code shifting and such are interesting, but still everything I have read still comes nowhere, nowhere, close to explaining complex designs, and there are zillions of extremely complex designs in creation. Taste, sight, smell, nervous systems, balance, beauty, love, thought, the brain, memory, and you’re never going to explain what a soul came from are you? You do know if to accept evolution you would have to deny we have a soul, or do you think souls evolved? Anyways I have to love you for your very tolerant spirit, and professional approach. You demonstrate a very agreeable and intelligent style of argument, but please understand my position of design; it takes a mind to design. :geek: It doesn’t make sense from that position to believe such positive complexity happens any other way. :) ?

User avatar
jonperry
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:00 pm
Location: Corvallis Oregon
Contact:

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by jonperry » Mon Oct 20, 2014 6:50 pm

Sorry folks, I'm a bit behind at work still and have not been able to get to writing here. Dizerner, I've been collecting some images to use in an article I'll be doing on irreducible complexity but I won't have it done for a few days probably. I'll post it here and on my site for everyone to see.

I noticed I missed Phil's comment the other day. Sorry about that, I skimmed passed it somehow. In it you said the following:
PR wrote: microevolution = yes
macroevolution = no way
I would love to invest some time discussing this with you here but I need a few things from you before we begin:

First, please define microevolution and macroevolution in your own words so I know what they mean to you in the context of your quote. This is important because these words are poorly defined in common literature. If you and I define them differently, we'll end up talking through each other which is a waste of everyone's time.

Second, if you have not seen them already, please watch these two animations carefully:

What is the Evidence for Evolution: http://statedclearly.com/videos/what-is ... evolution/
What is Natural Selection: http://statedclearly.com/videos/what-is ... selection/

Thanks!
Jon

SteveF

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by SteveF » Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:26 pm

Jon, I like how you are trying to raise different lines of evidence in one video. I think it’s important to consider all the evidence when attempting to reach an understanding. Here’s an example I’ve thought of:

A murder suspect claims he has never been to an apartment where a murder took place but the police find a small thread from a jacket at the crime scene that matches the same kind of jacket he wears. Of course this small piece of evidence is not enough to prove anything. That thread could have ended up there countless different ways. Plus, he’s not the only one who wears that style of jacket.

Now consider that the police also found his finger print on a drinking glass at the apartment and a shoe print in the victim’s blood that matches the style and size the suspect wears. That small piece of thread now takes on a whole new significance.

In the same fashion, it’s sometimes easy to dismiss or explain away a particular piece of evidence for evolution without considering all the evidence as a whole.
dizerner wrote:
I believe science and I believe Scripture on separate plains and I honestly have no idea how they intersect. I am open to being a theistic evolutionist,
Hi dizerner, I considered the evidence for evolution in the past and found it compelling. I suspect that in the future the understanding of evolution may be altered due to new evidence but the basic premise will remain intact.

Having said that, I’ve moved beyond considering evidence for evolution (perhaps I may revisit it in a future date, who knows). I’m now spending a part what little time I have doing what matters most to me…..Making sure I understand the bible correctly if evolution is true.

The good news is there are multiple resources available on how science and scripture can co-exist. I’ll list some for you to consider:

In the Beginning We Missunderstood – Interpreting Genesis 1 In Its Original Context
http://www.amazon.com/In-Beginning-We-M ... roduct_top

The Lost World of Genesis One – Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debates
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-World-Ge ... ST0V3Y3ZST

Mapping the Origins Debate: Six Models of the Beginning of Everything
This is a “Steve Gregg” style book where one person presents the arguments for six different views. There’s even a chart at the back, just like Steve has in his books!
http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Origins-D ... everything

Reading Genesis 1-2: An Evangelical Conversation
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Genesis-1 ... BN6X5X0KQB

I love Jesus & I Accept Evolution
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Jesus-Accept ... HM6X3JYQPG

Four Views on the Historical Adam
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Views-Histor ... M8VRV1EHDC

God Bless,
Steve

dizerner

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by dizerner » Tue Oct 21, 2014 12:31 am

[user account removed]
Last edited by dizerner on Sun Feb 19, 2023 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

PR
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:11 am

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by PR » Tue Oct 21, 2014 8:25 am

Hi Jon, I agree that it's important to understand the definition of the terms under discussion. Below I've included an article from John Morris that deliniates the difference between microevolution and macroevolution that I would agree with.

Let me reiterate, the theory of evolution fails at the macroevolution level when you consider the diversity of life in the cosmos. Millions of diverse life forms, just the time needed for all of these to "evolve" from one source, according to the theory, is just one of it's fatal flaws. If you can look at the evidence objectively, it just isn't possible, and you don't have to be a scientist to come to that conclusion. We all have the evidence to observe all around us!

Just so I'm not misunderstanding you Jon, let me ask you a question. Do you believe that all life on earth began from one chemical/biological event and all the subsequent millions of diverse life forms that we observe today sprang from this event through innumerable, random, undirected, series of changes?

Thanks

Phil

What Is The Difference Between Macroevolution And Microevolution?

by John D. Morris, Ph.D.

There is much misinformation about these two words, and yet, understanding them is perhaps the crucial prerequisite for understanding the creation/evolution issue.

Macroevolution refers to major evolutionary changes over time, the origin of new types of organisms from previously existing, but different, ancestral types. Examples of this would be fish descending from an invertebrate animal, or whales descending from a land mammal. The evolutionary concept demands these bizarre changes.

Microevolution refers to varieties within a given type. Change happens within a group, but the descendant is clearly of the same type as the ancestor. This might better be called variation, or adaptation, but the changes are "horizontal" in effect, not "vertical." Such changes might be accomplished by "natural selection," in which a trait within the present variety is selected as the best for a given set of conditions, or accomplished by "artificial selection," such as when dog breeders produce a new breed of dog.

The small or microevolutionary changes occur by recombining existing genetic material within the group. As Gregor Mendel observed with his breeding studies on peas in the mid 1800's, there are natural limits to genetic change. A population of organisms can vary only so much. What causes macroevolutionary change?

Genetic mutations produce new genetic material, but do these lead to macroevolution? No truly useful mutations have ever been observed. The one most cited is the disease sickle-cell anemia, which provides an enhanced resistance to malaria. How could the occasionally deadly disease of SSA ever produce big-scale change?

Evolutionists assume that the small, horizontal microevolutionary changes (which are observed) lead to large, vertical macroevolutionary changes (which are never observed). This philosophical leap of faith lies at the eve of evolution thinking.

A review of any biology textbook will include a discussion of microevolutionary changes. This list will include the variety of beak shape among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, Darwin's favorite example. Always mentioned is the peppered moth in England, a population of moths whose dominant color shifted during the Industrial Revolution, when soot covered the trees. Insect populations become resistant to DDT, and germs become resistant to antibiotics. While in each case, observed change was limited to microevolution, the inference is that these minor changes can be extrapolated over many generations to macroevolution.

In 1980 about 150 of the world's leading evolutionary theorists gathered at the University of Chicago for a conference entitled "Macroevolution." Their task: "to consider the mechanisms that underlie the origin of species" (Lewin, Science vol. 210, pp. 883-887). "The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution . . . the answer can be given as a clear, No."

Thus the scientific observations support the creation tenet that each basic type is separate and distinct from all others, and that while variation is inevitable, macroevolution does not and did not happen.

* Dr. John Morris is President of ICR.

Cite this article: John D. Morris, Ph.D. 1996. What Is The Difference Between Macroevolution And Microevolution?. Acts & Facts. 25 (10).

User avatar
backwoodsman
Posts: 536
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:32 am
Location: Not quite at the ends of the earth, but you can see it from here.

Re: Evidence for Evolution - Final video and new website des

Post by backwoodsman » Tue Oct 21, 2014 9:30 am

Sorry for the slow reply; I've been trying to get to this for several days.
jonperry wrote:I was alive during the Reagan Administration (though I was very young) and my Uncle was killed by AIDS when I was 12. I'm very familiar with the history. Jerry Falwell, a Southern Baptist preacher, was one of the loudest Creationists speaking out against spending government money on HIV research. His place on TV made him influential to the Christian right (including my family before we knew my uncle was sick). It was a political nightmare for anyone trying to get the epidemic under control.
Sorry about your uncle. Now I understand a little more about your motivations for leaving religion and evangelizing for evolutionism.

My impression at the time was that Falwell was very influential among a sizable minority of Christians. But even among conservative Christians there were many who didn't particularly like him, so it's really not fair or accurate to superimpose his views and actions onto the rest of us. I'm sure you're aware that both Christianity and creationism are anything but monolithic.
If it weren't for evolution, the baleen fingerprints would have been overlooked in toothed fossils. Someone could have stumbled upon them on accident but they would not have been guided by creationism or any other theory. If evolutionary theory didn't exist, we never would have known there was a toothed baleen whale living in the past.
To the contrary, I see no reason to think it wouldn't have been found just as easily, using much the same thought process, by old-earth creationist biologists. It's exactly the kind of thing OEC would expect to see. The only difference is, instead of ascribing the changes to blind chance, they ascribe them to a Creator designing specific creatures to fill specific niches at specific times in the carefully planned and executed development of the world, which progresses in the fossil record exactly as it does in the Bible.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to when I said you've offered no reason whatsoever to go with evolution rather than creation, and when I said creation is a better explanation for some of what we observe than is evolution. A Creator knows exactly what's necessary at every step of the process; evolution is completely blind, deaf, and unaware of even the present, much less the past or the future, so a sequence of creatures that follows some kind of logical progression is much stronger evidence for a Creator than for evolution.

You use the term 'young-earth creationist', so I assume you're familiar with old-earth creationism? Or maybe not; all your arguments are targeted at YEC with no acknowledgement of OEC. If not, you may need to study your target market a little more thoroughly, or else be more clear that you're actually targeting young-earth creationism rather than creationism in general. The latter would seem particularly important in your videos, in order to convey valid scientific information without misleading your audience.
This is a new discovery which (1) has been clearly observed (not inferred), baleen fingerprints and teeth are clearly there for all to see;
The fossil record is there for all to see, but you're still assuming the evolution, so it fails on this point. But I thought after I wrote that that this condition might be allowed to slide if it meets the other two, so let's see how it does on those.
(2) it would not have been predicted or looked for by creationist researchers;
Incorrect, as discussed above, so it fails here as well.
(3) whales are bigger than rats
Indeed they are, but they may someday evolve to be smaller, or the rats bigger (just kidding). So that's 1 out of 3; good try, but not a passing grade. Do you have any other examples to offer?
I see those things as favoring the idea of a Creator who, for good reasons we don't understand and may never be able to figure out, deliberately designed them that way.
With an appeal to Creationism alone you are correct sir, you may never be able to figure them out. That's why scientists prefer Evolution. It works!
So does old-earth creationism, but at some point one of them is going to stop working. Actually, some scientists say evolution is already there; maybe biologists should spend more time talking to physicists and astrophysicists to get a better idea of what is and is not within the realm of possibility as those fields know it to be, before getting so attached to one theory that they dismiss another out of hand without even looking at it. When one does that, one can hardly claim to be following the scientific method.
Here's an article on whale evolution by Biologos, the Bible based organization helping people accept evolution while still maintaining their faith: http://biologos.org/blog/understanding- ... evidence-1
The article is aimed at those who don't understand evolution. Some reject it for that reason; others, because they do understand it. I'm in the latter group. Theistic evolution is an attempt to reconcile two things (evolution and the Bible) that can't be reconciled without compromising one or the other, or both. By the way, why do you call BioLogos Bible-based?
By the way, my baleen evolution example debunks the major claim put forth in the article you posted. Your article said "When modern whales appear in the fossil record, they show up explosively with the full range of diversity for body size and dietary strategy (from carnivorous activity to filter-feeding)".
I can't see how one could make that judgment in either direction without more info from both sides; in particular, much more specific timeline data. Could you be a little more specific about why you think you've debunked it?
Apparently the authors of the article you posted don't read scientific journals. I can't blame them, science journals are boring. That said, if they are going to write about what scientists do, they should probably know what scientists do.
It was written by a guy with a PhD in chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry. I think he's probably read a few scientific journals. He became a Christian as a grad student after finding evolution inadequate to explain what he was seeing in his studies.

Post Reply

Return to “Creation/Evolution”