Post Any Evidence For God Here

[natty dread]

I feel it's kind of arrogant to use good deeds as a "proof of god". Why do they need to be acts of good? Good deeds should be appreciated for what they are, not because they reinforce your faith.

Arrogant, because it implies that only people of certain religion are capable of performing good deeds / humanitarian acts.

Anyway if you need proof of god, then perhaps your faith in it isn't very strong, eh?

[DangerBoy]

That's fine. I also think faith in God is highly personal, and the reasons differ from person to person. But the "posting pictures of beauty" approach hasn't really been sufficient to convince others, at least since the first page of this thread.

Thanks, it really is only proof that helped convince me. I know it's not going to convince a lot of other people. Plus, I think it's good to get another point of view than the one that's usually painted here.

[Lionz]

Neo,

You're arguing that the second law of thermodynamics was overcome without realizing it maybe.

The main scientific reason why there is no evidence for evolution in either the present or the past (except in the creative imagination of evolutionary scientists) is because one of the most fundamental laws of nature precludes it. The law of increasing entropy -- also known as the second law of thermodynamics -- stipulates that all systems in the real world tend to go "downhill," as it were, toward disorganization and decreased complexity. This law of entropy is, by any measure, one of the most universal, bestproved laws of nature. It applies not only in physical and chemical systems, but also in biological and geological systems -- in fact, in all systems, without exception.


No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been found -- not even a tiny one. Like conservation of energy (the "first law"), the existence of a law so precise and so independent of details of models must have a logical foundation that is independent of the fact that matter is composed of interacting particles. The author of this quote is referring primarily to physics, but he does point out that the second law is "independent of details of models." Besides, practically all evolutionary biologists are reductionists -- that is, they insist that there are no "vitalist" forces in living systems, and that all biological processes are explicable in terms of physics and chemistry. That being the case, biological processes also must operate in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics, and practically all biologists acknowledge this.


Evolutionists commonly insist, however, that evolution is a fact anyhow, and that the conflict is resolved by noting that the earth is an "open system," with the incoming energy from the sun able to sustain evolution throughout the geological ages in spite of the natural tendency of all systems to deteriorate toward disorganization. That is how an evolutionary entomologist has dismissed W. A. Dembski's impressive recent book, Intelligent Design. This scientist defends what he thinks is "natural processes' ability to increase complexity" by noting what he calls a "flaw" in "the arguments against evolution based on the second law of thermodynamics." And what is this flaw?


Although the overall amount of disorder in a closed system cannot decrease, local order within a larger system can increase even without the actions of an intelligent agent. This naive response to the entropy law is typical of evolutionary dissimulation. While it is true that local order can increase in an open system if certain conditions are met, the fact is that evolution does not meet those conditions. Simply saying that the earth is open to the energy from the sun says nothing about how that raw solar heat is converted into increased complexity in any system, open or closed.


The fact is that the best known and most fundamental equation of thermodynamics says that the influx of heat into an open system will increase the entropy of that system, not decrease it. All known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms. Evolution has neither of these. Mutations are not "organizing" mechanisms, but disorganizing (in accord with the second law). They are commonly harmful, sometimes neutral, but never beneficial (at least as far as observed mutations are concerned). Natural selection cannot generate order, but can only "sieve out" the disorganizing mutations presented to it, thereby conserving the existing order, but never generating new order. In principle, it may be barely conceivable that evolution could occur in open systems, in spite of the tendency of all systems to disintegrate sooner or later. But no one yet has been able to show that it actually has the ability to overcome this universal tendency, and that is the basic reason why there is still no bona fide proof of evolution, past or present.


From the statements of evolutionists themselves, therefore, we have learned that there is no real scientific evidence for real evolution. The only observable evidence is that of very limited horizontal (or downward) changes within strict limits.

We've come across one or more chicken and egg type scenario maybe. Have genes determined needs or did He design genes in creatures with future needs in mind or both or neither?

Is there a need to apply a creation story to Him if He's always existed? Laws of Physics suggest life and intelligence were not created by inorganic self created matter and He's not bound by Laws of Physics perhaps.

Am I altering a creation story to fit data? Was there not an order with plants coming before fish and fish coming before cattle and cattle coming before humans according to scripture?

You ask me can I think of something that would convince me that evolution happened? Can you define evolution if so? There are various family trees that are seperate from one another and you have tried to link them all together maybe, but have I claimed that speciation has not occured?

I can't think of something that would convince me that Yah does not exist maybe.

If three rabbit fossil specimens total have been found, then what would no rabbit fossil being found in "the precambrian" tell us?

Has a single tree (and not a collection of trees) been dated to be 5,000 years old with tree ring dating? If not, then do you have an explanation for that? If trees have been growing on earth for hundreds of millions of years, then what's up? Is there a limit for how long a tree can live that just happens to back up scripture? And is there a book or place online where we can personally see dendrochronology samples lined up to apparently show over 5,000 years of time? Who knows how many times seperate disturbances have been lined up in error or how many times missing rings have been inferred if that's common in BCP chronology?

Do these simply show superficial resemblances to dinosaurs?









And what would dinosaur bones explain for you if 95% of land vertebrate fossils consist of one bone fragment or tooth and only about 1,200 dinosaur skeletons had been found as of 1994?

What's too outrageous to be possible if there's a Creator who can create matter out of nothing?

What can igneous rock do to tell us how old sedimentary rock is regardless of how close anything is to anything else? Who knows when magma has surfaced? The truth is that index fossils are used to date sedimentary rock and sedimentary rock is used to date index fossils? Circular reasoning at it's finest perhaps.

What suggests the Colorado River had a path laid out and later geological activity elevated a section of it 4,000 feet from other sections of it? You refer to irrelavent stuff having to do with the Colorado Plateau as a whole maybe. What will happen if you get water flowing through sand at an elevation of 6 feet on a flexible platform and then you suddenly elevate a middle section of the platform by 10 feet?

If there are sedimentary layers that occured from flooding and sedimentary layers that did not, what can we use to tell the difference? If there happens to be an upright fossil traversing multiple layers of strata it's from flooding and if not it's not?

If there were violent eruptions of water underground out west and water covered all of earth weeks and weeks later and then eventually drained into areas called seas and oceans, we should expect to find canyons out west and expect for there to have been underwater turbidites that shifted sediment into concentrated areas and expect to find things like the Imperial Sand Dunes and expect to find things like the Morrison Formation and expect to find both fossils that traverse multiple layers of strata and fossils that do not traverse multiple layers of strata perhaps.

I'm not claiming that earth has ever been perfectly smooth, but what would an established ocean tell us about what subsurface water bursting forth in one or more localized section would do on a perfectly smooth earth?

Do you claim there's not enough water on earth for earth to have been covered by water in the past regardless of how smooth earth has been in the past?

The Colorado River is flowing through sedimentary rock that was once wet sediment deposited by the flood maybe. If we see a river running through limestone or shale, does that necessarily mean that the river actually carved into limestone or shale? Rivers have been cut into material that's hardened over time perhaps.

What's shown in these if not a main funneled canyon that was cut as a result of a natural dam being breached and also a sunken path type canyon that was cut by the Colorado River?

[MeDeFe]

^ Why do people do that? I believe in God and even I think that's not really a good proof. You need to back it up; how do those pictures support God's existence?

I can't answer for why people do that, but I can explain why I did it.

I don't believe that the original poster will accept any single post, picture, or line of reasoning as evidence. I knew when I posted those pictures that the atheists here and others would say that's just a bunch of people being nice to other people. However, I believe that God supernaturally changes people when they accept Him. He gives them a new heart and they take action on that change. To me, their actions are evidence that God exists and has motivated them to perform humanitarian acts.

Now I know from being here for a long time that that will never be accepted by you or the atheists here. I'm not saying you're an atheist by the way. Instead it will be spun to something like: those people just used religion as a motivation to perform humanitarian acts. After that will come a list of bad things Christians or other religious people have done and they will be called hypocrites.

I'm just saying that that is evidence to me. It's evidence to other people. It's just not evidence to a majority of the people who post in here and dedicate their lives to ridiculing believers.

What jones said.

How do you explain non-christians, and especially non-believers, doing nice and humanitarian things? If they have not been supernaturally given a new heart, why do they do it? Is it really like jones said, that christians have some flaw prior to becoming christians that the vast majority of other people don't have? Because that's exactly what you're implying with your line of reasoning.

[BigBallinStalin]

^ Why do people do that? I believe in God and even I think that's not really a good proof. You need to back it up; how do those pictures support God's existence?

I can't answer for why people do that, but I can explain why I did it.

I don't believe that the original poster will accept any single post, picture, or line of reasoning as evidence. I knew when I posted those pictures that the atheists here and others would say that's just a bunch of people being nice to other people. However, I believe that God supernaturally changes people when they accept Him. He gives them a new heart and they take action on that change. To me, their actions are evidence that God exists and has motivated them to perform humanitarian acts.

Now I know from being here for a long time that that will never be accepted by you or the atheists here. I'm not saying you're an atheist by the way. Instead it will be spun to something like: those people just used religion as a motivation to perform humanitarian acts. After that will come a list of bad things Christians or other religious people have done and they will be called hypocrites.

I'm just saying that that is evidence to me. It's evidence to other people. It's just not evidence to a majority of the people who post in here and dedicate their lives to ridiculing believers.

From a non-atheist, non-monotheistic point of view, I'd say that their actions aren't evidence of God, but are evidence of their power to create a God. If you believe hard enough, you'll will it into being, and you'll act accordingly (being good and what not). They themselves give themselves a "new heart." It's all in the mind/spirit.

What I like seeing is that people generally mistaken this for God, while it's them the whole time doing it. There's nothing at all wrong with this, and I'd say that most spiritual people have it better than the less spiritual people--regardless of whether one believes in God or not.

Now, if one wants to get into some kind of interconnectedness among humans, the Chi/Qi from Taiqi, Reiki, and what not, I'd say that's the strongest evidence in pointing toward a God. But I really don't take that stand because it's the people themselves tapping into their own spiritual, or other-wordly, powers.

[Neoteny]

Neo,

You're arguing that the second law of thermodynamics was overcome without realizing it maybe.

The main scientific reason why there is no evidence for evolution in either the present or the past (except in the creative imagination of evolutionary scientists) is because one of the most fundamental laws of nature precludes it. The law of increasing entropy -- also known as the second law of thermodynamics -- stipulates that all systems in the real world tend to go "downhill," as it were, toward disorganization and decreased complexity. This law of entropy is, by any measure, one of the most universal, bestproved laws of nature. It applies not only in physical and chemical systems, but also in biological and geological systems -- in fact, in all systems, without exception.


No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been found -- not even a tiny one. Like conservation of energy (the "first law"), the existence of a law so precise and so independent of details of models must have a logical foundation that is independent of the fact that matter is composed of interacting particles. The author of this quote is referring primarily to physics, but he does point out that the second law is "independent of details of models." Besides, practically all evolutionary biologists are reductionists -- that is, they insist that there are no "vitalist" forces in living systems, and that all biological processes are explicable in terms of physics and chemistry. That being the case, biological processes also must operate in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics, and practically all biologists acknowledge this.


Evolutionists commonly insist, however, that evolution is a fact anyhow, and that the conflict is resolved by noting that the earth is an "open system," with the incoming energy from the sun able to sustain evolution throughout the geological ages in spite of the natural tendency of all systems to deteriorate toward disorganization. That is how an evolutionary entomologist has dismissed W. A. Dembski's impressive recent book, Intelligent Design. This scientist defends what he thinks is "natural processes' ability to increase complexity" by noting what he calls a "flaw" in "the arguments against evolution based on the second law of thermodynamics." And what is this flaw?


Although the overall amount of disorder in a closed system cannot decrease, local order within a larger system can increase even without the actions of an intelligent agent. This naive response to the entropy law is typical of evolutionary dissimulation. While it is true that local order can increase in an open system if certain conditions are met, the fact is that evolution does not meet those conditions. Simply saying that the earth is open to the energy from the sun says nothing about how that raw solar heat is converted into increased complexity in any system, open or closed.


The fact is that the best known and most fundamental equation of thermodynamics says that the influx of heat into an open system will increase the entropy of that system, not decrease it. All known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms. Evolution has neither of these. Mutations are not "organizing" mechanisms, but disorganizing (in accord with the second law). They are commonly harmful, sometimes neutral, but never beneficial (at least as far as observed mutations are concerned). Natural selection cannot generate order, but can only "sieve out" the disorganizing mutations presented to it, thereby conserving the existing order, but never generating new order. In principle, it may be barely conceivable that evolution could occur in open systems, in spite of the tendency of all systems to disintegrate sooner or later. But no one yet has been able to show that it actually has the ability to overcome this universal tendency, and that is the basic reason why there is still no bona fide proof of evolution, past or present.


From the statements of evolutionists themselves, therefore, we have learned that there is no real scientific evidence for real evolution. The only observable evidence is that of very limited horizontal (or downward) changes within strict limits.

I am not arguing that at all. There are plenty of errors in that bit, including the fact that mutations have been observed with positive effects, the fact that evolution does have a "guiding program" (natural selection), and the fact that heat has nothing to do with how entropy decreased on earth (plants capture UV radiation, not heat).

We've come across one or more chicken and egg type scenario maybe. Have genes determined needs or did He design genes in creatures with future needs in mind or both or neither?

Genes have never determined needs. Genes have changed and been requisitioned as new or different needs arise. Needs determined genes, if it may be so simply put. A god doing all that still tends to complicate things a bit.

Is there a need to apply a creation story to Him if He's always existed?

Is there a need to apply a creation story to the universe if it always existed?

Laws of Physics suggest life and intelligence were not created by inorganic self created matter and He's not bound by Laws of Physics perhaps.

Laws of physics and life do suggest life and intelligence arose and evolved by natural means.

Am I altering a creation story to fit data? Was there not an order with plants coming before fish and fish coming before cattle and cattle coming before humans according to scripture?

That's hard to say, because it depends on your creation story. Are you familiar with the Norse creation myth?

You ask me can I think of something that would convince me that evolution happened? Can you define evolution if so? There are various family trees that are seperate from one another and you have tried to link them all together maybe, but have I claimed that speciation has not occured?

Speciation is an appropriate means for defining the product of evolution. Has speciation occurred, and if not, what would it take to convince you?

I can't think of something that would convince me that Yah does not exist maybe.

I can't say I'm surprised.

If three rabbit fossil specimens total have been found, then what would no rabbit fossil being found in "the precambrian" tell us?

That there were mammals around before mammals evolved. That would disprove evolution, sir.

Has a single tree (and not a collection of trees) been dated to be 5,000 years old with tree ring dating?

By a collection of trees (each its own organism) being dated back, that means several single trees have been dated to be 5000 years old via tree ring dating. It didn't live to be 5000 years old, but it is over 5000 years old.

Do these simply show superficial resemblances to dinosaurs?

Does that look like it includes everything or is it just wishful thinking?

Are those horns or ears on its head? Which of those did stegosaurs have? Which of those do rhinos have?

Look at the back legs of sauropods.


And then look at the back legs of horses (and your drawing)



I'm not saying we should expect all drawings to be anatomically correct, but there are a few generalities (especially in detailed art like above) that lead me to believe there is just some artistic license (and wishful thinking) going on there.

I'm having trouble taking that one seriously. Where's that from?

And what would dinosaur bones explain for you if 95% of land vertebrate fossils consist of one bone fragment or tooth and only about 1,200 dinosaur skeletons had been found as of 1994?

That would confirm that there are a lot of incomplete skeletons, but we're lucky to have so many complete ones.

What's too outrageous to be possible if there's a Creator who can create matter out of nothing?

Why don't you see that as being outrageous?

What can igneous rock do to tell us how old sedimentary rock is regardless of how close anything is to anything else?

Igneous rock can be carbon dated. So if there was an igneous rock that formed at the same time as a layer was laid down, we can date that layer.

Who knows when magma has surfaced?

Often there are layers of ash and bodies and stuff.

The truth is that index fossils are used to date sedimentary rock and sedimentary rock is used to date index fossils? Circular reasoning at it's finest perhaps.

That is not the truth. The truth is that index fossils are dated by sedimentary rock, and index fossils found in sediments elsewhere can be assumed to have been from the same time period as the other sedimentary rock. That's not circular, but it is logical.

What suggests the Colorado River had a path laid out and later geological activity elevated a section of it 4,000 feet from other sections of it? You refer to irrelavent stuff having to do with the Colorado Plateau as a whole maybe.

The Colorado Plateau, as a whole, is what caused the raising of the river. That's not irrelevant. That's suggestive.

What will happen if you get water flowing through sand at an elevation of 6 feet on a flexible platform and then you suddenly elevate a middle section of the platform by 10 feet?

If you do it over millions of years, you will get a canyon in the sand.

If there are sedimentary layers that occured from flooding and sedimentary layers that did not, what can we use to tell the difference? If there happens to be an upright fossil traversing multiple layers of strata it's from flooding and if not it's not?

No. Sediments from oceans will have seashells and shark fossils and coral, and they might have high salt concentrations. Sediments from lakes will have fossils of certain types of bony fish or freshwater clams. It's not hard to tell a riverbed from an ocean bed (or a land mass).

If there were violent eruptions of water underground out west and water covered all of earth weeks and weeks later and then eventually drained into areas called seas and oceans, we should expect to find canyons out west and expect for there to have been underwater turbidites that shifted sediment into concentrated areas and expect to find things like the Imperial Sand Dunes and expect to find things like the Morrison Formation and expect to find both fossils that traverse multiple layers of strata and fossils that do not traverse multiple layers of strata perhaps.

All that can be explained by other means. Can you think of anything that we would only find in a global flood?

I'm not claiming that earth has ever been perfectly smooth, but what would an established ocean tell us about what subsurface water bursting forth in one or more localized section would do on a perfectly smooth earth?

Possibly.

Do you claim there's not enough water on earth for earth to have been covered by water in the past regardless of how smooth earth has been in the past?

I don't think so. Earth's land masses move around and sink and rise. I don't think it's impossible to consider a scenario where all land is underwater.

The Colorado River is flowing through sedimentary rock that was once wet sediment deposited by the flood maybe. If we see a river running through limestone or shale, does that necessarily mean that the river actually carved into limestone or shale? Rivers have been cut into material that's hardened over time perhaps.

Perhaps. Would it not be possible for a river to cut through limestone or shale over a long period of time?

What's shown in these if not a main funneled canyon that was cut as a result of a natural dam being breached and also a sunken path type canyon that was cut by the Colorado River?

I still don't quite grasp what you're trying to say with these pictures.

[Lionz]

Neoteny,

Are you ultimately claiming that...

1) Order increased on earth enough for a hard rocky crust to have sprout chloropyll harnessing organisms?

2) #1 happened without earth receiving a positive flow of usable energy from an external source?

3) #2 would not have violated the second law of thermodynamics?

How about give an example of a mutation that's been witnessed and was positive in terms of surviving and passing on genes if there's been such a thing? And then ask yourself how many you can think of that seem obviously negative to you in that regard?







What would natural selection have to do with replicating systems coming from non-replicating systems?

What's evidence that ants and whales share a common ancestor if genes can be used as evidence for both a common designer and common ancestry?

Do you say the universe and mean all that exists or say that and mean a specific three dimensional plane of existance or both or neither?

What's a law of physics that suggests intelligence arose and evolved by natural means if there is one?

I'm not familiar with a Norse creation myth depending on definition at least maybe. Is there one that has an order of plants-fish-cattle-humans?

There were original created kinds that have more to do with the word genus than the word species and speciation has occured depending on definition at least perhaps.

If zero rabbit fossil specimens total have been found, then what would no rabbit fossil being found in "the precambrian" tell us?

Has a tree ever been dated to have lived for more than 5,000 years with tree ring dating? If trees have been growing on earth for hundreds of millions of years, is there a limit for how long a tree can live that just happens to back up scripture?

I apparently did send one or more misleading image maybe, but what's shown here if not a dinosaur petroglyph?



Who knows if stegosaurus has had external ear cartilidge or not? Ever seen a human skull with ears protruding from it?

See rear leg and feet bones here?



I've referred to quite a bit of stuff you can learn more about with s8int.com pages perhaps.

When has igneous rock been found sandwiched between layers of sedimentary rock and then dated to try to determine an age for the sedimentary rock?

How can index fossils be dated by sedimentary rock if index fossils can be somehow? And what do you mean index fossils found in sediments elsewhere can be assumed to have been from the same time period as the other sedimentary rock if you said that? Maybe society in general has one or more incorrect understanding about the so called geologic column and there's limestone and shale and sandstone found at various depths in the earth.

Was it not unanimously concluded by a symposium of geologists over 40 years ago that the Antecedent River Theory could not be true?

2) The eastern portion of the Colorado River, northeast of the Utah-Arizona border, behaves like a normal river, having its origins at high elevations and finding the easiest path toward the ocean. The area near the present Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell, is at an elevation of some 5,000 feet. But the region to the west, near the beginning of Grand Canyon, rises in the vast uplifted Colorado Plateau stretching for hundreds of miles. This is caused by the Kaibab Upwarp, or Kaibab Monocline, which lifted the previously flat strata some 3000 feet. This would appear to form a barrier to the flow of the river, which might have turned southeast to join the Rio Grande and dump into the Gulf of Mexico, or it might have turned south and southwest to dump into the Pacific via the Gulf of California. Instead, it did what seems impossible -- flowed west, cutting directly into and through this huge monocline!

3) When did this uplift occur? When was the Canyon eroded? Uniformitarian geologists, using the Geologic Column system of classification, assign the highest folded strata of the Kaibab Uplift to the Upper Cretaceous, said to be some 70 million years old. Further north, these are beveled and overlain by the flat-lying Wasatch Formation, which was not uplifted or folded. It is assigned to the Eocene Series of the Tertiary, which is said to be some 50 million years old. The uplift must have occurred between these two dates (according to evolutionary thinking). And parts of the Grand Canyon erosion cut through portions of Wasatch Formation rock near Bryce Canyon. This shows that the massive erosion of the Grand Canyon occurred after the Wasatch was laid down, within the last 50 million years. We must recognize that the vast Colorado Plateau was already in position before the Colorado River flowed uphill (?) to cut the Grand Canyon through that Plateau! Something doesn't add up.

4) From 1926 until 1950, just before the Glen Canyon Dam was built, the daily sediment flow of the river was carefully measured, and was found to average almost 500,000 tons per day (168 million tons per year). This is equivalent to 0.015 cubic miles per year. During a 1927 flood, this increased to some 23 million tons per day. Another interesting fact -- in modern times, the majority of the sediment coming out of the Canyon originates in the headwaters region, not in the Canyon itself. The Grand Canyon is not presently undergoing much erosion.

The Antecedent River Theory is the name given to the original "solution" to the question of "How did the Grand Canyon originate?" It's been described in elementary textbooks for more than a century, and is still seen on much of the literature put out by National Park Service. It began in 1869, when geologist John Wesley Powell rafted down the river. He was a believer in uniformitarianism, so naturally he found an idea that matched that belief. He said that the river must have existed in about its present position before, or antecedent to the uplift of the Colorado Plateau, during the Laramide Orogeny, about 50 to 70 million years ago. He said that as the slow uplift occurred the river eroded the uplifted portion, maintaining its current level. Thus the theory depends on a rate of erosion which precisely matched the rate of uplift. For about 100 years since that time geologists have gone along with that theory.

However, many geologists have recognized that there were some major problems with this idea. Among the worst is the question of what happened to such vast amounts of sediment. If the river had been carrying that much sediment for that long a time, this would amount to (168 million tons/year) x (70 million years) = 11.8 million billion tons, equivalent to some 1.3 million cubic miles of rock. This is 1500 times the volume of Grand Canyon itself, and should be easy to find. But there was no trace of such a huge delta deposit.

Just outside the west end of Grand Canyon, at Pierce Ferry, there is a lot of sedimentary deposit (but not nearly that much). This is mostly limestone with some local granite gravel. These don't have the character one would expect from massive erosional deposits for millions of years. They are called the Muddy Creek Formation, and are assigned a Miocene age (about 20 million years).

In 1964, a symposium of geologists who had extensively studied the western end of the canyon met to discuss this theory, as well as others.. E.D.McKee, R.F.Wilson, W.J.Breed, and C.S.Breed, "Evolution of the Colorado River in Arizona," in the Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 44 (1967), pp. 1-67. This is cited in Austin's Grand Canyon." Their conclusion was unanimous -- this theory couldn't be true. The primary problem involved the sedimentary deposits which would have been made by the river over many millions of years, but which couldn't be found!

The next issue of Creation Bits (No. 16) will discuss the other two main theories of how Grand Canyon was formed -- the "Precocious Gully Theory" and the "Breached Dam Theory." We'll see that the breached dam idea has the best experimental evidence behind it, and also fits the Genesis account of the Great Flood of Noah. It has a strong parallel that was produced by the 1980 volcanic explosion of Mount St. Helens, with its damming of the Toutle River and subsequent breaching of that dam. The result looks very much like a 1/40-scale model of the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

Maybe that should contain more and is a misquote for all I know.

Where are seashells not found? Regardless, what do they or shark fossils or coral have to do with figuring out if sedimentary strata was laid down from flooding or not? Have there not been sedimentary layers laid down from freshwater flooding and sedimentary layers laid down from saltwater flooding?

Do you look west and see Barringer Crater and the Oglalla Aquifer and Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Snake River Plain and Great Salt Lake and Zion Canyon and Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon and the Imperial Sand Dunes and Petrified Forest National Park and the Morrison Formation and honestly not see that as collectively compelling evidence for the flood? Question for yourself and not for you to post an answer to maybe. How about you provide some theories? Are there canyons outside the states that can you name?

I'm not sure if anything's impossible perhaps, but if we come across a river running through sedimentary rock should we assume it was cut through sedimentary rock and not wet sediment?

What's shown here? Two main canyons? What carved each if so?



Here's a 3d map with location of it on top right perhaps.



One main body of water broke through and helped break through another body of water towards the south and they combined and did some real serious damage perhaps.



Notice locations for Monument Valley and Petrified Forest National Park?

There are images with words in here that are not my words depending on definition at least maybe.

[notyou2]

Dangerboy, why do you have an avy of what appears to be an evangelical preacher squeezing the life from a poor helpless and defenceless kitten?

[Neoteny]

Neoteny,

Are you ultimately claiming that...

1) Order increased on earth enough for a hard rocky crust to have sprout chloropyll harnessing organisms?

Close enough.

2) #1 happened without earth receiving a positive flow of usable energy from an external source?

Nope. There has always been a positive external energy flow. It just wasn't always needed. Chemical reactions would have provided enough energy until the sun's energy could be harnessed. There is no creation of energy. There is no decrease in entropy without energy being added. Therefore:

3) #2 would not have violated the second law of thermodynamics?

No.

How about give an example of a mutation that's been witnessed and was positive in terms of surviving and passing on genes if there's been such a thing? And then ask yourself how many you can think of that seem obviously negative to you in that regard?

There might be more negative mutations than positive ones, sure, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Beneficial mutations common in E. coli.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... 7/5839/813

Mutation restricts HIV infection in humans.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... /5283/1856

How beneficial a gene is depends quite a bit on the environment, but now you have a couple of examples to think about.

What would natural selection have to do with replicating systems coming from non-replicating systems?

Natural selection will affect any replicating system, regardless of its origin.

What's evidence that ants and whales share a common ancestor if genes can be used as evidence for both a common designer and common ancestry?

The same evidence that supports common ancestry of wolves and roses suggests ancestry of ants and whales. Ants and whales, like plants and wolves, share certain genes. It's hard to believe, I know, but its true.

Do you say the universe and mean all that exists or say that and mean a specific three dimensional plane of existance or both or neither?

All that exists.

What's a law of physics that suggests intelligence arose and evolved by natural means if there is one?

There isn't. But there is no law that specifically prevents it, would perhaps be a more accurate way of expressing what I was trying to say.

I'm not familiar with a Norse creation myth depending on definition at least maybe. Is there one that has an order of plants-fish-cattle-humans?

I don't know. I'm not familiar with every creation myth out there. There are too many.

There were original created kinds that have more to do with the word genus than the word species and speciation has occured depending on definition at least perhaps.

If you are willing to allow for speciation, then why not allow for creation of new genera or families?

If zero rabbit fossil specimens total have been found, then what would no rabbit fossil being found in "the precambrian" tell us?

Not much. There are fossil rabbits though. What does that tell us if there aren't any in the precambrian.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4274129.stm

Has a tree ever been dated to have lived for more than 5,000 years with tree ring dating? If trees have been growing on earth for hundreds of millions of years, is there a limit for how long a tree can live that just happens to back up scripture?

I'm beginning to think you want me to tell you if there is a tree that lived for more than five thousand years. I don't know that. I do know that there is a continuous line of trees that goes back at least 11,000 years, which makes that question moot (and does not back up literal scripture.

I apparently did send one or more misleading image maybe, but what's shown here if not a dinosaur petroglyph?

I dunno. What do you make of it?

Who knows if stegosaurus has had external ear cartilidge or not? Ever seen a human skull with ears protruding from it?

They would be a very rare breed of reptile, the likes of which we have never seen before, because we have not found any reptiles with external ear cartilage. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but it's extremely unlikely. Also, if stegosaurs did coexist with humans, where are all the tools made of tail spikes and armor made of stego plates?

See rear leg and feet bones here?

Those look like dino bones, which do not look like the animals in the picture.

When has igneous rock been found sandwiched between layers of sedimentary rock and then dated to try to determine an age for the sedimentary rock?

When volcanoes erupt.

How can index fossils be dated by sedimentary rock if index fossils can be somehow?

They are dated relatively (as in the older stuff is below the newer stuff).

And what do you mean index fossils found in sediments elsewhere can be assumed to have been from the same time period as the other sedimentary rock if you said that?

If we find a layer of sediment in Georgia that has a certain type of fossil crab, and we only see it in that layer, and then we find another layer of sediment in Tennessee that has the exact same type of crab, only in that layer, it's possible that they could be the same age (and from the same sedimentation event; perhaps an ancient ocean). It is not a guarantee, but that is the idea that index fossils work on.

Maybe society in general has one or more incorrect understanding about the so called geologic column and there's limestone and shale and sandstone found at various depths in the earth.

There might be, but the geological column is a rather simple concept. New rock over old rock.

Was it not unanimously concluded by a symposium of geologists over 40 years ago that the Antecedent River Theory could not be true?

2) The eastern portion of the Colorado River, northeast of the Utah-Arizona border, behaves like a normal river, having its origins at high elevations and finding the easiest path toward the ocean. The area near the present Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell, is at an elevation of some 5,000 feet. But the region to the west, near the beginning of Grand Canyon, rises in the vast uplifted Colorado Plateau stretching for hundreds of miles. This is caused by the Kaibab Upwarp, or Kaibab Monocline, which lifted the previously flat strata some 3000 feet. This would appear to form a barrier to the flow of the river, which might have turned southeast to join the Rio Grande and dump into the Gulf of Mexico, or it might have turned south and southwest to dump into the Pacific via the Gulf of California. Instead, it did what seems impossible -- flowed west, cutting directly into and through this huge monocline!

3) When did this uplift occur? When was the Canyon eroded? Uniformitarian geologists, using the Geologic Column system of classification, assign the highest folded strata of the Kaibab Uplift to the Upper Cretaceous, said to be some 70 million years old. Further north, these are beveled and overlain by the flat-lying Wasatch Formation, which was not uplifted or folded. It is assigned to the Eocene Series of the Tertiary, which is said to be some 50 million years old. The uplift must have occurred between these two dates (according to evolutionary thinking). And parts of the Grand Canyon erosion cut through portions of Wasatch Formation rock near Bryce Canyon. This shows that the massive erosion of the Grand Canyon occurred after the Wasatch was laid down, within the last 50 million years. We must recognize that the vast Colorado Plateau was already in position before the Colorado River flowed uphill (?) to cut the Grand Canyon through that Plateau! Something doesn't add up.

4) From 1926 until 1950, just before the Glen Canyon Dam was built, the daily sediment flow of the river was carefully measured, and was found to average almost 500,000 tons per day (168 million tons per year). This is equivalent to 0.015 cubic miles per year. During a 1927 flood, this increased to some 23 million tons per day. Another interesting fact -- in modern times, the majority of the sediment coming out of the Canyon originates in the headwaters region, not in the Canyon itself. The Grand Canyon is not presently undergoing much erosion.

The Antecedent River Theory is the name given to the original "solution" to the question of "How did the Grand Canyon originate?" It's been described in elementary textbooks for more than a century, and is still seen on much of the literature put out by National Park Service. It began in 1869, when geologist John Wesley Powell rafted down the river. He was a believer in uniformitarianism, so naturally he found an idea that matched that belief. He said that the river must have existed in about its present position before, or antecedent to the uplift of the Colorado Plateau, during the Laramide Orogeny, about 50 to 70 million years ago. He said that as the slow uplift occurred the river eroded the uplifted portion, maintaining its current level. Thus the theory depends on a rate of erosion which precisely matched the rate of uplift. For about 100 years since that time geologists have gone along with that theory.

However, many geologists have recognized that there were some major problems with this idea. Among the worst is the question of what happened to such vast amounts of sediment. If the river had been carrying that much sediment for that long a time, this would amount to (168 million tons/year) x (70 million years) = 11.8 million billion tons, equivalent to some 1.3 million cubic miles of rock. This is 1500 times the volume of Grand Canyon itself, and should be easy to find. But there was no trace of such a huge delta deposit.

Just outside the west end of Grand Canyon, at Pierce Ferry, there is a lot of sedimentary deposit (but not nearly that much). This is mostly limestone with some local granite gravel. These don't have the character one would expect from massive erosional deposits for millions of years. They are called the Muddy Creek Formation, and are assigned a Miocene age (about 20 million years).

In 1964, a symposium of geologists who had extensively studied the western end of the canyon met to discuss this theory, as well as others.. E.D.McKee, R.F.Wilson, W.J.Breed, and C.S.Breed, "Evolution of the Colorado River in Arizona," in the Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 44 (1967), pp. 1-67. This is cited in Austin's Grand Canyon." Their conclusion was unanimous -- this theory couldn't be true. The primary problem involved the sedimentary deposits which would have been made by the river over many millions of years, but which couldn't be found!

The next issue of Creation Bits (No. 16) will discuss the other two main theories of how Grand Canyon was formed -- the "Precocious Gully Theory" and the "Breached Dam Theory." We'll see that the breached dam idea has the best experimental evidence behind it, and also fits the Genesis account of the Great Flood of Noah. It has a strong parallel that was produced by the 1980 volcanic explosion of Mount St. Helens, with its damming of the Toutle River and subsequent breaching of that dam. The result looks very much like a 1/40-scale model of the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

That doesn't seem very reliable. What do the sediments have to do with disproving that hypothesis? The channel had to be carved at some point. Just because we can't find the sediments (perhaps we should check the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, or the Colorado River Delta) doesn't mean they aren't somewhere. The river is there, so the sediments are somewhere, either washed away slowly according to academic consensus, or washed away quickly by a Biblical Flood. Seems like those geologists may have been confused (or misrepresented, or something. I can't find any other confirmation of that symposium).

Where are seashells not found? Regardless, what do they or shark fossils or coral have to do with figuring out if sedimentary strata was laid down from flooding or not?

A global flood would free sharks and fish and coral to grow on all land. We should find them in those layers.

Have there not been sedimentary layers laid down from freshwater flooding and sedimentary layers laid down from saltwater flooding?

Sure.

Do you look west and see Barringer Crater and the Oglalla Aquifer and Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Snake River Plain and Great Salt Lake and Zion Canyon and Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon and the Imperial Sand Dunes and Petrified Forest National Park and the Morrison Formation and honestly not see that as collectively compelling evidence for the flood? Question for yourself and not for you to post an answer to maybe. How about you provide some theories? Are there canyons outside the states that can you name?

I honestly think that all those formations are better explained by means other than "a shit-ton of water did it." They are much more complex than that. Each of those has a complex history that could fill a book on their own. I'm not going to go over each one. Hell, wikipedia usually has a section devoted to the geology of such features. I'm confident that the wiki will be close enough to being right to point you there.

There are plenty of canyons outside of the US. They all have or had rivers flowing through them too.

I'm not sure if anything's impossible perhaps, but if we come across a river running through sedimentary rock should we assume it was cut through sedimentary rock and not wet sediment?

Well, that's what's in front of us. Should we assume that the sediment was all wet at once without any evidence of it?

What's shown here? Two main canyons? What carved each if so?



Here's a 3d map with location of it on top right perhaps.

If they are canyons, then rivers carved each of them.

One main body of water broke through and helped break through another body of water towards the south and they combined and did some real serious damage perhaps.



Notice locations for Monument Valley and Petrified Forest National Park?

Is there a reason those lakes got there or did they just magically appear? Do you think that if all of the Great lakes swept down to the Gulf of Mexico, it would make a canyon like the Grand Canyon?

[MeDeFe]

I'm not familiar with a Norse creation myth depending on definition at least maybe. Is there one that has an order of plants-fish-cattle-humans?

In a nutshell: Fire and cold get together and produce a giant, parts of the giant proceed to have sex with other parts of the giant, giving birth to dwarves, elves and gods. The gods kill the giant and create the world out of its corpse. Wars and stuff happen, gods create humans out of two pieces of driftwood.

[Lionz]

Neoteny,

Does the second law of thermodynamics not basically state that the universe as a whole is tending to run towards disorder?

There might be some exceptions having to do with external energy being converted into usable energy in open systems, but what would internal chemical reactions have to do with overcoming it? Is there even a mainstream secular source that claims internal chemical reactions provided energy to overcome until energy from the sun could be harnessed?

What's actually been a beneficial mutation in bacteria if there's been one? Are you suscribed to AAAS?

And what's actually a deletion heterozygote? Who knows whether or not there were actually unbeneficial mutations that led to there being receptors for certain strains of HIV-1 in the first place? Even if there have been beneficial deletions, what would a deletion have to do with something new coming about? Being born without legs might help you avoid getting athelete's foot, but who wants to be born without legs?

How about you try to put a beneficial mutation into words of your own if there's been such a thing?

Did legs evolve to be wings? Were there half-wing flappy stump wielding individuals for hundreds of thousands of generations that had limbs which could not be used to fly or run? Where's fossil evidence for that if so?

What would natural selection do to help replicating systems arise in the first place?

How about you give a list of evidence that supports common ancestry of wolves and roses or ants and whales if you can come up with one?

He has always existed and is part of all that exist perhaps. Who's arguing that the universe has not always existed if the universe is defined as all that exists?

I'm not sure if there's a perfect definition for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, or Species maybe, but if scripture suggests He created certain kinds of creatures with an ability to bring forth after their kinds then is there any reason why we should believe that's not the case? What suggests that's not the case? Can we not get zebras and horses to have offspring naturally?

What's used to determine whether sedimentary rock is precambrian or not regardless of how many rabbit fossil specimens have been found? Index fossils themselves?

Is there a book or place online where we can personally see dendrochronology samples lined up to apparently show over 5,000 years of time? Who knows how many times seperate disturbances have been lined up in error or how many times missing rings have been inferred if that's common in BCP chronology?

How about you and I let petroglyphs speak for themselves without drawing on them?

Here's an image showing a replica of a skull from a Stegosaurus stenops perhaps...



Was there not apparently something that protruded backwards from sides? And who knows if there have been tools or armor made from Stegosaurus parts? Who knows what's been covered up? Search this in a search engine maybe... Smithsonian nephilim.

What's shown here if not dinosaurs?



When has depth of earth been used to try to determine an age for sedimentary rock? If flooding can lay down multiple layers of sediment several meters deep then what can depth of earth tell us?

Global flooding could have easily dispersed 1.3 million cubic miles of wet sediment far out into the Pacific perhaps, but what suggests the Colorado River washed 1.3 cubic miles of rock somewhere?

A global flood would free sharks and fish and coral to grow on all land? What do you mean by that if you said that? Would massive flooding of hot water somehow convince sharks to swim to a higher elevation? It would actually convince sharks to swim lower to try to find colder temperatures maybe.

Who's simply giving an explanation of a shit ton of water doing something? Does earth contain geothermal features and geysers with more than half of the former and 80% of the later found in Yellowstone? Is there an underground aquifer spanning 8 states and stretching to just east of Yellowstone? Is there a crater in Arizona that was apparently caused by something with an unnaturally shaped end with four sides? Is Snake River Plain just southwest of Yellowstone and the result of water running down and smoothing out land? Is Great Salt Lake a body of salt water that's trapped between mountains? Are Monument Valley and Rainbow Bridge (not sure if RB is technically part of Monument Valley or not perhaps) and Petrified Forest National Park not all apparently located in areas that were once basins of bodies of water? Areas just east and northeast of the Kiabab Uplift and the Grand Canyon? Is there not a main exit of the Grand Canyon with the Algodones Dunes swept off the side just south of it? And is the Morrison Formation not right smack dab in the middle of it all with fossils galore?

How about we discuss Barringer Crater and move on from there? Did a randomly shaped meteor cause it? You will find it here perhaps... http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=35.02738 ... =0&src=msa

If we come across a river running through sedimentary rock, we should not assume it was cut through sedimentary rock or wet sediment maybe.

See a largest canyon here? Do you theorize that there's been a river wide enough to reach across it if so?



Grand Lake and Hopi Lake resulted from the flood maybe... they might have actually come together to cut the Grand Canyon years after the flood.

Is there a dam preventing the Great Lakes from flooding towards the south?

[notyou2]

Sometimes I think that some people are just smart enough to be dangerous.

Anyone else think that?

Is that God talking in my head, or is it really my thoughts?

[BigBallinStalin]

Sometimes I think that some people are just smart enough to be dangerous.

Anyone else think that?

Is that God talking in my head, or is it really my thoughts?

I guess that makes us in the fora pretty harmless.

[Neoteny]

Neoteny,

Does the second law of thermodynamics not basically state that the universe as a whole is tending to run towards disorder?

Yes.

There might be some exceptions having to do with external energy being converted into usable energy in open systems, but what would internal chemical reactions have to do with overcoming it? Is there even a mainstream secular source that claims internal chemical reactions provided energy to overcome until energy from the sun could be harnessed?

It's called "Primordial Soup Theory." It's very easy to find. The idea is that lightning or UV or some combination or maybe some other source hit various molecules causing them to react and join together and form different compounds. The very nature of chemistry means that energy was transferred (from the lightning for example) to the molecules, and was stored there. These can be broken apart and the energy can be harnessed. The first life would likely have used these local energy sources until the sun energy was harnessed.

What's actually been a beneficial mutation in bacteria if there's been one?

Here's a simple one. Different lines of E. coli were exposed to a single random insertion mutation. 12% observed improved fitness.

http://www.pnas.org/content/98/20/11388.full

Are you suscribed to AAAS?

I get their emails, but I don't receive Science. I have a school library that I go to if I need to look at the actual articles.

And what's actually a deletion heterozygote?

A heterozygote is an individual who has two different alleles at the same gene locus. To illustrate, suppose there is a single gene for a trait (color of peas is the traditional example). You get a copy of that gene from each parent. Similarly, for simplicity's sake, let's assume you have two colors (say, yellow or green). In traditional Mendelian genetics, one of those will be dominant, and the other will be recessive (let's say green is dominant). That means that if you have one copy of the gene for yellow peas, and one copy of a gene for green peas, you will have green peas. Since you have two different alleles at that locus, you will be a heterozygote. If you have two yellow alleles, you will be a homozygote (recessive), and if you have two green alleles, you will be a homozygote (dominant). Now, if you take a homozygote and cause a type of mutation called a deletion, which removes a single base or a whole chunk of bases, from one of the alleles, you will have one copy of a normal allele, and one copy of the allele with the deletion. You will be a heterozygote, and, specifically, a deletion heterozygote. A deletion homozygote will have two copies of the allele with the deletion.

Who knows whether or not there were actually unbeneficial mutations that led to there being receptors for certain strains of HIV-1 in the first place?

That could be possible. I don't think it's likely, but if that's the case, that still leaves open the possibility of beneficial mutations occurring. If they can happen to reverse old mutations, why can't they happen to improve on other beneficial mutations?

Even if there have been beneficial deletions, what would a deletion have to do with something new coming about? Being born without legs might help you avoid getting athelete's foot, but who wants to be born without legs?

Well, a snake for one. Lame humor aside, when we're talking on the level of immune reactions, we move to a much different realm than your typical birth defects. Allow me...

How about you try to put a beneficial mutation into words of your own if there's been such a thing?

What the HIV article is discussing requires a little basic knowledge of biochemistry. Every gene is a code that translates into a protein. The shape of the protein determines what it is capable of doing, and any modification of the gene translates into a change into the shape of the protein. This is important because proteins act in a very specific way. They interact with other proteins by binding at various sites. If you cause a mutation at one of these binding sites then you affect their ability to bind. This is important particularly in immunology because viruses in particular need to bind to cells to inject their business, and white blood cells need to bind to viruses to stop them from acting. Viruses are notorious for being able to change the shape of the molecules that white blood cells recognize. This is not some mystery that we can't explain. This is due to a direct change in the DNA (RNA in many cases) of the virus. These are beneficial mutations, but I'll continue on with the deletions. The paper basically said that there was a higher ratio of people with the deletion in a group of long-term AIDS survivors than in the general population. That very heavily implies that the mutation is beneficial. Not quite the same as losing your legs, right?

Did legs evolve to be wings?

In the case of birds and bats, yes.

Were there half-wing flappy stump wielding individuals for hundreds of thousands of generations that had limbs which could not be used to fly or run?

There is debate about how exactly wings evolved. The traditional argument goes "if you fall out of a tree, will half a wing save you better than no wings?" Sure. Whether or not that's how it actually happened, it's not difficult to think of situations where parts of wings would be more helpful than not having them. It's an old ploy, but the question is not as rhetorical as is often intended. Does a glider with half it's wings cut off fly better than a glider without wings? Yes it does.

Where's fossil evidence for that if so?

Let's take a jaunt...

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosauropteryx

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudipteryx

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor

Click image to enlarge.

http://oficina.cienciaviva.pt/~pw011/ja ... aoning.htm

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jixiangornis

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapeornis

Click image to enlarge.

http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil-Pict ... nsis-b.htm

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyornis

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1184 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1113 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1119 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrate ... /aves.html

What would natural selection do to help replicating systems arise in the first place?

Did I say that would happen? There are hypotheses that go that route, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to go that route. Other methods are easier to understand and perhaps more likely.

How about you give a list of evidence that supports common ancestry of wolves and roses or ants and whales if you can come up with one?

You want a list? Ok.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_alignment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computatio ... logenetics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tr ... al_fossils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_anatomy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigiality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia (that's right, the whole continent)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_biogeography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_ ... Biology%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhagoletis_pomonella
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

He has always existed and is part of all that exist perhaps.

Why is that better or more likely than just having a universe that has always existed?

Who's arguing that the universe has not always existed if the universe is defined as all that exists?

That's not quite what I'm arguing. All that is purely natural. How about that?

I'm not sure if there's a perfect definition for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, or Species maybe, but if scripture suggests He created certain kinds of creatures with an ability to bring forth after their kinds then is there any reason why we should believe that's not the case?

Is there any reason to believe that is the case?

What suggests that's not the case? Can we not get zebras and horses to have offspring naturally?

Naturally? Not quite. The fact that organisms change over time is indicative that they have more than just the ability to bring forth their kind. They can bring forth other kinds as well, and have come forth from other kinds.

What's used to determine whether sedimentary rock is precambrian or not regardless of how many rabbit fossil specimens have been found? Index fossils themselves?

Er... no. There are hardly any fossils in Precambrian rock (not much to fossilize, and certainly no rabbits). Precambrian rocks are pretty much just the really old rocks that are found under rocks from the Cambrian era. They have also been radiometrically dated.

Is there a book or place online where we can personally see dendrochronology samples lined up to apparently show over 5,000 years of time? Who knows how many times seperate disturbances have been lined up in error or how many times missing rings have been inferred if that's common in BCP chronology?

None online that I know of, but the results have all been published. I trust the dendrochronologists to be able to figure out solutions to such simplistic errors. Even if I could find an online resource that lined up 11,000 years of trees, what would you say to that?

How about you and I let petroglyphs speak for themselves without drawing on them?

I think it's a valid point. People will often see what they want to see.

Here's an image showing a replica of a skull from a Stegosaurus stenops perhaps...



Was there not apparently something that protruded backwards from sides? And who knows if there have been tools or armor made from Stegosaurus parts? Who knows what's been covered up? Search this in a search engine maybe... Smithsonian nephilim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull#Temporal_fenestrae


Notice that all things that have temporal fenestrae (those holes in the skull that cause that formation) don't have external ears, and those organisms that don't have temporal fenestrae are the ones that develop external ears. That's just part of the shape of the skull, and, at the angle the head was held, those would have pointed straight back toward the rear of the dinosaur.

As far as coverups go, I'm not convinced. There are so many Christians around that I bet if a single one got a hold of some of the things you're hinting at might be covered up, it would be shouted to the skies. Tangible evidence of Biblical veracity; we would never hear the end of it. Instead, we just get shadowmen hiding everything away.

What's shown here if not dinosaurs?

Giraffes? Most likely it's just someone's imagination gone wild. Ancient humans got bored sometimes too.

When has depth of earth been used to try to determine an age for sedimentary rock?

Once the concept of a geological column was realized, it happens all the time.

If flooding can lay down multiple layers of sediment several meters deep then what can depth of earth tell us?

When (relatively) floods were, and to what extent they covered, as well as other typical sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous formations.

Global flooding could have easily dispersed 1.3 million cubic miles of wet sediment far out into the Pacific perhaps, but what suggests the Colorado River washed 1.3 cubic miles of rock somewhere?

The Colorado River delta.

A global flood would free sharks and fish and coral to grow on all land? What do you mean by that if you said that?

If the world was covered in water, fish and coral would be able to go anywhere (assuming they weren't boiled alive), right?

Would massive flooding of hot water somehow convince sharks to swim to a higher elevation? It would actually convince sharks to swim lower to try to find colder temperatures maybe.

That's probably the most reasonable thing you've said in this entire thread. Nice work on that one. We're assuming the ocean wouldn't boil everything alive because Noah survived, right? But, sure, if the global flood boils, then, yeah, the sharks probably avoided the hot parts. I imagine we would still expect to find a single layer covered in fossils of humans and dogs and cats and stuff like that which would be deposited by the flood.

Who's simply giving an explanation of a shit ton of water doing something?

That's pretty much the definition of a global flood.

Does earth contain geothermal features and geysers with more than half of the former and 80% of the later found in Yellowstone? Is there an underground aquifer spanning 8 states and stretching to just east of Yellowstone? Is there a crater in Arizona that was apparently caused by something with an unnaturally shaped end with four sides? Is Snake River Plain just southwest of Yellowstone and the result of water running down and smoothing out land? Is Great Salt Lake a body of salt water that's trapped between mountains? Are Monument Valley and Rainbow Bridge (not sure if RB is technically part of Monument Valley or not perhaps) and Petrified Forest National Park not all apparently located in areas that were once basins of bodies of water? Areas just east and northeast of the Kiabab Uplift and the Grand Canyon? Is there not a main exit of the Grand Canyon with the Algodones Dunes swept off the side just south of it? And is the Morrison Formation not right smack dab in the middle of it all with fossils galore?

Are there not geological explanations for all of those?

How about we discuss Barringer Crater and move on from there? Did a randomly shaped meteor cause it? You will find it here perhaps... http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=35.02738 ... =0&src=msa

Ever heard of jointing? They also found chunks of a meteorite...

If we come across a river running through sedimentary rock, we should not assume it was cut through sedimentary rock or wet sediment maybe.

Indeed, we should not without evidence. But we have no evidence to show that it was all deposited at once, and therefore, all wet.

See a largest canyon here? Do you theorize that there's been a river wide enough to reach across it if so?

Probably not all the time. But floods and subsequent wind erosion can account for wideness.

Grand Lake and Hopi Lake resulted from the flood maybe... they might have actually come together to cut the Grand Canyon years after the flood.

The sediment would have been very dry then.

Is there a dam preventing the Great Lakes from flooding towards the south?

Not really. It was just a hypothetical question.

[AAFitz]

Neoteny,

Does the second law of thermodynamics not basically state that the universe as a whole is tending to run towards disorder?

Yes.

There might be some exceptions having to do with external energy being converted into usable energy in open systems, but what would internal chemical reactions have to do with overcoming it? Is there even a mainstream secular source that claims internal chemical reactions provided energy to overcome until energy from the sun could be harnessed?

It's called "Primordial Soup Theory." It's very easy to find. The idea is that lightning or UV or some combination or maybe some other source hit various molecules causing them to react and join together and form different compounds. The very nature of chemistry means that energy was transferred (from the lightning for example) to the molecules, and was stored there. These can be broken apart and the energy can be harnessed. The first life would likely have used these local energy sources until the sun energy was harnessed.

What's actually been a beneficial mutation in bacteria if there's been one?

Here's a simple one. Different lines of E. coli were exposed to a single random insertion mutation. 12% observed improved fitness.

http://www.pnas.org/content/98/20/11388.full

Are you suscribed to AAAS?

I get their emails, but I don't receive Science. I have a school library that I go to if I need to look at the actual articles.

And what's actually a deletion heterozygote?

A heterozygote is an individual who has two different alleles at the same gene locus. To illustrate, suppose there is a single gene for a trait (color of peas is the traditional example). You get a copy of that gene from each parent. Similarly, for simplicity's sake, let's assume you have two colors (say, yellow or green). In traditional Mendelian genetics, one of those will be dominant, and the other will be recessive (let's say green is dominant). That means that if you have one copy of the gene for yellow peas, and one copy of a gene for green peas, you will have green peas. Since you have two different alleles at that locus, you will be a heterozygote. If you have two yellow alleles, you will be a homozygote (recessive), and if you have two green alleles, you will be a homozygote (dominant). Now, if you take a homozygote and cause a type of mutation called a deletion, which removes a single base or a whole chunk of bases, from one of the alleles, you will have one copy of a normal allele, and one copy of the allele with the deletion. You will be a heterozygote, and, specifically, a deletion heterozygote. A deletion homozygote will have two copies of the allele with the deletion.

Who knows whether or not there were actually unbeneficial mutations that led to there being receptors for certain strains of HIV-1 in the first place?

That could be possible. I don't think it's likely, but if that's the case, that still leaves open the possibility of beneficial mutations occurring. If they can happen to reverse old mutations, why can't they happen to improve on other beneficial mutations?

Even if there have been beneficial deletions, what would a deletion have to do with something new coming about? Being born without legs might help you avoid getting athelete's foot, but who wants to be born without legs?

Well, a snake for one. Lame humor aside, when we're talking on the level of immune reactions, we move to a much different realm than your typical birth defects. Allow me...

How about you try to put a beneficial mutation into words of your own if there's been such a thing?

What the HIV article is discussing requires a little basic knowledge of biochemistry. Every gene is a code that translates into a protein. The shape of the protein determines what it is capable of doing, and any modification of the gene translates into a change into the shape of the protein. This is important because proteins act in a very specific way. They interact with other proteins by binding at various sites. If you cause a mutation at one of these binding sites then you affect their ability to bind. This is important particularly in immunology because viruses in particular need to bind to cells to inject their business, and white blood cells need to bind to viruses to stop them from acting. Viruses are notorious for being able to change the shape of the molecules that white blood cells recognize. This is not some mystery that we can't explain. This is due to a direct change in the DNA (RNA in many cases) of the virus. These are beneficial mutations, but I'll continue on with the deletions. The paper basically said that there was a higher ratio of people with the deletion in a group of long-term AIDS survivors than in the general population. That very heavily implies that the mutation is beneficial. Not quite the same as losing your legs, right?

Did legs evolve to be wings?

In the case of birds and bats, yes.

Were there half-wing flappy stump wielding individuals for hundreds of thousands of generations that had limbs which could not be used to fly or run?

There is debate about how exactly wings evolved. The traditional argument goes "if you fall out of a tree, will half a wing save you better than no wings?" Sure. Whether or not that's how it actually happened, it's not difficult to think of situations where parts of wings would be more helpful than not having them. It's an old ploy, but the question is not as rhetorical as is often intended. Does a glider with half it's wings cut off fly better than a glider without wings? Yes it does.

Where's fossil evidence for that if so?

Let's take a jaunt...

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosauropteryx

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudipteryx

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor

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http://oficina.cienciaviva.pt/~pw011/ja ... aoning.htm

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jixiangornis

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapeornis

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http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil-Pict ... nsis-b.htm

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyornis

Click image to enlarge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1184 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1113 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1119 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrate ... /aves.html

What would natural selection do to help replicating systems arise in the first place?

Did I say that would happen? There are hypotheses that go that route, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to go that route. Other methods are easier to understand and perhaps more likely.

How about you give a list of evidence that supports common ancestry of wolves and roses or ants and whales if you can come up with one?

You want a list? Ok.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_alignment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computatio ... logenetics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tr ... al_fossils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_anatomy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigiality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia (that's right, the whole continent)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_biogeography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_ ... Biology%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhagoletis_pomonella
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

He has always existed and is part of all that exist perhaps.

Why is that better or more likely than just having a universe that has always existed?

Who's arguing that the universe has not always existed if the universe is defined as all that exists?

That's not quite what I'm arguing. All that is purely natural. How about that?

I'm not sure if there's a perfect definition for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, or Species maybe, but if scripture suggests He created certain kinds of creatures with an ability to bring forth after their kinds then is there any reason why we should believe that's not the case?

Is there any reason to believe that is the case?

What suggests that's not the case? Can we not get zebras and horses to have offspring naturally?

Naturally? Not quite. The fact that organisms change over time is indicative that they have more than just the ability to bring forth their kind. They can bring forth other kinds as well, and have come forth from other kinds.

What's used to determine whether sedimentary rock is precambrian or not regardless of how many rabbit fossil specimens have been found? Index fossils themselves?

Er... no. There are hardly any fossils in Precambrian rock (not much to fossilize, and certainly no rabbits). Precambrian rocks are pretty much just the really old rocks that are found under rocks from the Cambrian era. They have also been radiometrically dated.

Is there a book or place online where we can personally see dendrochronology samples lined up to apparently show over 5,000 years of time? Who knows how many times seperate disturbances have been lined up in error or how many times missing rings have been inferred if that's common in BCP chronology?

None online that I know of, but the results have all been published. I trust the dendrochronologists to be able to figure out solutions to such simplistic errors. Even if I could find an online resource that lined up 11,000 years of trees, what would you say to that?

How about you and I let petroglyphs speak for themselves without drawing on them?

I think it's a valid point. People will often see what they want to see.

Here's an image showing a replica of a skull from a Stegosaurus stenops perhaps...



Was there not apparently something that protruded backwards from sides? And who knows if there have been tools or armor made from Stegosaurus parts? Who knows what's been covered up? Search this in a search engine maybe... Smithsonian nephilim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull#Temporal_fenestrae


Notice that all things that have temporal fenestrae (those holes in the skull that cause that formation) don't have external ears, and those organisms that don't have temporal fenestrae are the ones that develop external ears. That's just part of the shape of the skull, and, at the angle the head was held, those would have pointed straight back toward the rear of the dinosaur.

As far as coverups go, I'm not convinced. There are so many Christians around that I bet if a single one got a hold of some of the things you're hinting at might be covered up, it would be shouted to the skies. Tangible evidence of Biblical veracity; we would never hear the end of it. Instead, we just get shadowmen hiding everything away.

What's shown here if not dinosaurs?

Giraffes? Most likely it's just someone's imagination gone wild. Ancient humans got bored sometimes too.

When has depth of earth been used to try to determine an age for sedimentary rock?

Once the concept of a geological column was realized, it happens all the time.

If flooding can lay down multiple layers of sediment several meters deep then what can depth of earth tell us?

When (relatively) floods were, and to what extent they covered, as well as other typical sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous formations.

Global flooding could have easily dispersed 1.3 million cubic miles of wet sediment far out into the Pacific perhaps, but what suggests the Colorado River washed 1.3 cubic miles of rock somewhere?

The Colorado River delta.

A global flood would free sharks and fish and coral to grow on all land? What do you mean by that if you said that?

If the world was covered in water, fish and coral would be able to go anywhere (assuming they weren't boiled alive), right?

Would massive flooding of hot water somehow convince sharks to swim to a higher elevation? It would actually convince sharks to swim lower to try to find colder temperatures maybe.

That's probably the most reasonable thing you've said in this entire thread. Nice work on that one. We're assuming the ocean wouldn't boil everything alive because Noah survived, right? But, sure, if the global flood boils, then, yeah, the sharks probably avoided the hot parts. I imagine we would still expect to find a single layer covered in fossils of humans and dogs and cats and stuff like that which would be deposited by the flood.

Who's simply giving an explanation of a shit ton of water doing something?

That's pretty much the definition of a global flood.

Does earth contain geothermal features and geysers with more than half of the former and 80% of the later found in Yellowstone? Is there an underground aquifer spanning 8 states and stretching to just east of Yellowstone? Is there a crater in Arizona that was apparently caused by something with an unnaturally shaped end with four sides? Is Snake River Plain just southwest of Yellowstone and the result of water running down and smoothing out land? Is Great Salt Lake a body of salt water that's trapped between mountains? Are Monument Valley and Rainbow Bridge (not sure if RB is technically part of Monument Valley or not perhaps) and Petrified Forest National Park not all apparently located in areas that were once basins of bodies of water? Areas just east and northeast of the Kiabab Uplift and the Grand Canyon? Is there not a main exit of the Grand Canyon with the Algodones Dunes swept off the side just south of it? And is the Morrison Formation not right smack dab in the middle of it all with fossils galore?

Are there not geological explanations for all of those?

How about we discuss Barringer Crater and move on from there? Did a randomly shaped meteor cause it? You will find it here perhaps... http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=35.02738 ... =0&src=msa

Ever heard of jointing? They also found chunks of a meteorite...

If we come across a river running through sedimentary rock, we should not assume it was cut through sedimentary rock or wet sediment maybe.

Indeed, we should not without evidence. But we have no evidence to show that it was all deposited at once, and therefore, all wet.

See a largest canyon here? Do you theorize that there's been a river wide enough to reach across it if so?

Probably not all the time. But floods and subsequent wind erosion can account for wideness.

Grand Lake and Hopi Lake resulted from the flood maybe... they might have actually come together to cut the Grand Canyon years after the flood.

The sediment would have been very dry then.

Is there a dam preventing the Great Lakes from flooding towards the south?

Not really. It was just a hypothetical question.

The world is better for having you in it.

[Neoteny]

I get that a lot.

[Juan_Bottom]

Do we have to quote all the pictures? Some of us have slow connections.

What's shown here if not dinosaurs?

Image



Giraffes? Most likely it's just someone's imagination gone wild. Ancient humans got bored sometimes too.

Well, you're selecting certain pics of artwork and ignoring others. How many other pictures can you find that don't really resemble anything pre-historic? What's interesting is that you also hadn't mentioned the cultural gap. These artworks are all from very under developed-peoples? How is their "word of mouth" supposed to be better than European or Asian written language and science? It is also common knowledge among Archeologists that old civilizations came up with ideas for mythological beasts from Dinosaur Bones they discovered. Archeological journals from the late 1800s through the 30s are littered with observations of strange and unique bones that were discoverd at dig sites in places of importance.... then (sometimes after including sketches) these bones were usually thrown out as rubbish.

Lionz wrote:See a largest canyon here? Do you theorize that there's been a river wide enough to reach across it if so?

Image



Probably not all the time. But floods and subsequent wind erosion can account for wideness.

Anyway.... so If I remember right I think that the top layers of the Canyon are made from Limestone and Sandstones, but the lowest layers are made of Granite. This would account for the differing widths you can see in the photo. You can kick apart Sandstone but I dare you to drop-kick a chunk of Granite. So yeah....give any water way 15-20 million years and it will show you all the rock beneath it.

(I want to help, but I want to stay out of it)

[jonesthecurl]

On the question of the dinosaurs:
Are you thinking that these relics are pre-Flood perhaps? and that the dinos died out in the Flood maybe ? (to use your Socratic style of posting)

Where were they found, and are the sites where they were found under the deposits laid down from the Flood?

[Juan_Bottom]

On the question of the dinosaurs:
Are you thinking that these relics are pre-Flood perhaps? and that the dinos died out in the Flood maybe ? (to use your Socratic style of posting)

Where were they found, and are the sites where they were found under the deposits laid down from the Flood?

Awe drat! I totally typed that question but deleted part of my post... I accidentally axed it and forgot I had even written it! Thanks Jones!

[john9blue]

Neoteny is slowly joining the ranks of player, got tonkaed, and aafitz. Except I guess he only posts like this because it's his area of expertise...

[jonesthecurl]

I was talking about this earlier. It seems to me that these fora are like a conversation, not a lecture hall. I asked Lionz to post one thing at a time. Neo is replying to the War & Peace length waffles in a reasonable way, except that lionz ignores the replies because he doesn't understand them. Then he asks the question again.

As I said at the point that lionz suggested that maybe the Great Pyramid was not a tomb but a direct message from God, (perhaps?) he is a troll. Nobody can honestly give house room in their head to some of his "reasonable questions".

[Lionz]

Neoteny,

1. Did a random distribution of dust particles come together into a spheroid called earth and spawn organisms that could harness energy from sunlight?

2. Would that have involved an overall increase in order and decrease in entropy on earth?

3. What part of the Universe transferred useful energy to earth for to have occured if a part did and there's little to nothing on earth without chlorophyll that the sun does not break down?

4. What would geothermal energy or lightning have to do with energy being transferred to earth?

5. What does the sun not actually break down and decrease order in?



6. Not sure you if meant to refer to Primordial Soup Theory in a hey you're stupid sense or not maybe, but you mentioned it and then proceeded to refer to UV right after doing so perhaps. Who has a primordial soup theory that does not involve energy from the sun allowing order to increase on earth without chloropyll harnessing organisms on it?

7. Are you ultimately arguing that particles evolved into atoms and atoms into molecules and molecules into worlds and stars and galaxies and that inorganic compounds evolved into living materials and that living materials evolved into more and more complex plants and animals and finally into humans who can now intelligently control future evolution and arguing that all of that occured without there being an increase in order and decrease in entropy in the Universe?

8. Where's a beneficial mutation if in glucose none of the 26 mutations produced a significant fitness gain relative to the progenitor and the progenitor was raised in glucose?

9. I was not meaning to ask you what deletion heterozygote meant and came across wrong perhaps. Who knows what's actually an absence of an unbeneficial mutation? If someone was born with receptor for HIV-1 that was caused by a mutation and then they later had offspring that did not possess genetic information for the receptor, would that really be a mutation reversing a mutation?

10. This might seem like nonsense you, but what if man was created with receptors for certain strains of HIV-1 and yet there are angels who have produced offspring with humans and passed on certain traits like blue eyes and blonde hair and lack of certain receptors? What do you feel about the word nephilim?

11. You refer to a featherless dinosaur fossil and a flightless bird fossil and several bird of flight fossils and a mysterious image from a Spanish site containing one or more of the above and an image of a living bird? Is there a particular fossil you would like to discuss in detail?

12. How about consider these...

Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
Now, the textbooks are going to tell the kids, "Boys and girls, birds are the descendants of dinosaurs." How many have ever heard of that before? Wasn’t that the whole purpose behind the Jurassic Park movie? Now, just hold on a minute, in case you don’t know, there are a few differences between a dinosaur and a bird. You don’t just put a few feathers on him and say, "Let’s go man come on you can do it!" It’s not quite that easy folks. You see, reptiles have four perfectly good legs, birds have two legs and two wings. So if his front legs are going to change into wings (besides lots of other things having to change, like the muscular system, the nervous system to control this and the brain to control flight) besides all of that, somewhere along the line, his front legs are going to be half-leg half-wing. Which means now he can’t run and he can’t fly. This guy is going to have a problem evolving through that stage don’t you think? As a matter of fact, through all the stages he’s going to have a problem evolving.

Scales and Feathers
They tell the kids though, that birds are covered with feathers, (which is true) and they are going to say, "Boys and girls, bird feathers evolved from the same scales that protected the dinosaurs so well." Hold on a second. Feathers are extremely complex. The only similarity they have between feathers and scales is they are both made from the same protein. It is called Keratin. Your finger nails and your hair are made from the same stuff. That doesn’t prove that they are related. It proves they’ve got a common Designer. Did you know battleships and forks are both made out of the same metal? Iron. That proves that they both evolved from a tin can 27 million years ago. (Jump frog jump!) Man, you’re getting the wrong conclu-sions here folks! Similarity proves a common Designer.

Other Differences
There are real problems with the bird evolution from reptiles. The lungs are totally different. Reptiles have a sac type lung. Birds have a tubular type lung. Very different lung system. Modern birds are found in layers with and lower than the so-called dinosaurs. How can they be the ancestors? How can the dinosaurs change to birds? The birds were already there, even by their thinking, with their faulty geologic scale. Scales and feathers attach to the body differently and they come from different genes on the chromosome. Birds have a four chambered heart. Reptiles have a three chambered heart. Major change there, folks! How is that going to survive? In addition to just the heart changing, you have to get the nerve supply changing. And the DNA code changing so the next generation has this heart change. It doesn’t work.
Reptiles lay a leathery egg. Birds have a hard-shelled egg. There are thousands of differences between reptiles and birds. There is no evidence. And the experts know that.
Even W.E. Swinton from the British Museum of Natural History, the largest fossil collection in the world. He said, "there is no fossil evidence of the stages through which the remarkable change from reptile to bird was achieved." Now, he believes that happened, but he knows that there is no fossil evidence. But the textbooks tell the kids that there is.

Archaeopteryx
They show the picture of Archaeopteryx and say, "Boys and girls, this is Archaeopteryx." (Wow—big word, write that down. It will be on the test!) Archaeopteryx. It means "ancient wing." They are going to say, "Boys and girls, this used to be a dinosaur. This is the missing link." It’s a bird, teacher. It’s twelve inches long. Come on! It’s the size of a pigeon. Only six have been found. Some people think they are all fakes. I don’t know. Even if they are legitimate though it’s just a bird. It’s 100% bird! The size of a crow.

Claws and Teeth

They are going to say, "Well, now, he’s got claws on his wings. Do you see those claws right there? Don’t you see? That proves he used to be a dinosaur." Come on now, teacher. Twelve birds today have claws on their wings. The ostrich, the hoatzin, the touraco, the ibis. I can’t name them all but there are twelve birds that have claws on the wings right now! By the way, going from claws to no claws would be an example of losing something, not gaining something. Is that how evolution works? You lose everything until you have it all? I don’t get it.
Well, they are going to say, "Well, he’s got teeth in his beak! See those teeth right there? That proves he used to be a dinosaur!" Well, now, hold on just a minute, some birds have teeth, most don’t. Some reptiles have teeth some don’t. Some fish have teeth, some don’t. Some of you have teeth. Some don’t. That doesn’t prove you used to be a dinosaur. And again, going from teeth to no teeth is losing, not gaining! That’s the opposite of what we need!

Evolving a Loss?

They told me when I went to school, "Man used to have a tail but he lost it because he didn’t need it." I thought, didn’t need it?! Have you ever thought how handy a tail would be? Have you ever come to the door with two sacks of groceries? That would be nice man. Grab that door, open it right up, and swing it around, walk right in there! Have you ever been driving down the highway and wished you had something to hold that can of Coke or tune that radio knob? It would be tougher to put your britches on, I understand all that. Somebody could figure that out, you know, put another zipper or something. I don’t know, they’d figure it out. But what do you mean lost it because we didn’t need it? That’s propaganda! These experts know that there is no evidence for any changing! They say there is fossil evidence and there isn’t!

Warm-blooded vs. cold-blooded
Seemingly forgotten in all the claims that birds are essentially dinosaurs (or at least that they evolved from dinosaurs) is the fact that dinosaurs are reptiles. There are many differences between birds and reptiles, including the fact that (with precious few exceptions) living reptiles are cold-blooded creatures, while birds and mammals are warm-blooded. Indeed, even compared to most mammals, birds have exceptionally high body temperatures resulting from a high metabolic rate.

The difference between cold- and warm-blooded animals isn’t simply in the relative temperature of the blood but rather in their ability to maintain a constant body core temperature. Thus, warm-blooded animals such as birds and mammals have internal physiological mechanisms to maintain an essentially constant body temperature; they are more properly called “endothermic.” In contrast, reptiles have a varying body temperature influenced by their surrounding environment and are called “ectothermic.” An ectothermic animal can adjust its body temperature behaviorally (e.g., moving between shade and sun), even achieving higher body temperature than a so-called warm-blooded animal, but this is done by outside factors.

In an effort to make the evolution of dinosaurs into birds seem more plausible, some evolutionists have argued that dinosaurs were also endothermic,1 but there is no clear evidence for this.2

One of the lines of evidence for endothermic dinosaurs is based on the microscopic structure of dinosaur bones. Fossil dinosaur bones have been found containing special microscopic structures called osteons (or Haversian systems). Osteons are complex concentric layers of bone surrounding blood vessels in areas where the bone is dense. This arrangement is assumed by some to be unique to endothermic animals and thus evidence that dinosaurs are endothermic, but such is not the case. Larger vertebrates (whether reptiles, birds, or mammals) may also have this type of bone. Even tuna fish have osteonal bone in their vertebral arches.

Another argument for endothermy in dinosaurs is based on the eggs and assumed brood behavior of dinosaurs, but this speculation too has been challenged.3 There is in fact no theropod brooding behavior not known to occur in crocodiles and other cold-blooded living reptiles.

Alan Feduccia, an expert on birds and their evolution, has concluded that “there has never been, nor is there now, any evidence that dinosaurs were endothermic.”4 Feduccia says that despite the lack of evidence “many authors have tried to make specimens conform to the hot-blooded theropod dogma.”

13. I posted a quote having to do with the second law of thermodynamics that says all known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms or that says at least something like that and you referred to natural selection as a guiding mechanism for evolution in response maybe. Was there a guiding program of some sort that helped lead to a replicating system coming into existance from a non-replicating system?

14. You refer to four or more wikipedia sites that have to do with genetics and genetics can be used as evidence for a common designer or common ancestry?

15. Want to discuss so called transitional fossils? What have Darwin and Stephen Gould and Colin Patterson had to say?

NG leads readers to believe that Darwin thought the fossil record supported his theory. But actually he admitted more than once in his famous book6 that the fossil record is an embarrassment to his theory of descent from a common ancestor. He knew that if his theory was true, there should be countless numbers of transitional forms (e.g., 100% reptile, 75% reptile-25% bird, 50% reptile-50%bird, 25% reptile-75%bird, 100% bird and many transitional forms between each of those). Darwin attributed the lack of evidence to our ignorance of the fossil record. But today our museums are loaded with fossils and the missing links are still missing.

As the late Harvard evolutionary geologist, Stephen Gould, put it:

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.7

In a 1979 letter responding to the late creationist, Luther Sunderland, Colin Patterson, then Senior Palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, concurred:

I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? ... You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line — there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.8

Richard Dawkins’ evolutionist disciple at Oxford University, Mark Ridley, is emphatic:

However, the gradual change of fossil species has never been part of the evidence for evolution. In the chapters on the fossil record in the Origin of Species Darwin showed that the record was useless for testing between evolution and special creation because it has great gaps in it. The same argument still applies. ... In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.9 [emphasis in the original]

Should there not be literally billions of fossils of creatures in a transition between fish and land dwelling tetrapods if universal common descent is true? Is there any reason to assume that Panderichthys or Tiktaalik were anything other than aquatic and what has actually been found of Tulerpeton? Skull fragments, small belly scutes, an incomplete pectoral girdle, an incomplete forelimb and an incomplete hindlimb? It's simply a variety of alligator or crocodile maybe. And were remains of it not recovered from the Tula Region of Russia? It's ironically evidence for a preflood earth with above freezing temperatures across the planet perhaps.

16. Can comparitive anatomy not be used as evidence for a common designer?





17. What's truly a vestigial organ?

18. What do Australia or island biogeography have to do with whether or not ants share common ancestory with whales?

19. What does adaptive radiation have to do with whether or not ants share common ancestory with whales? Would seeing different breeds of dogs or a variety of finches and then jumping to a conclusion that snakes and bananas share common ancestry as a result not be taking a leap of faith and logic?



20. Want to discuss cytochrome-c? http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v7i10f.htm

21. What does antibiotic resistance have to do with macroevolution or even evolution in general? Can a single individual not build up resistance to antibiotics in a couple of months?

22. What does the apple maggot have to do with whether or not ants share common ancestory with whales?

23. What does the peppered moth have to do with whether or not ants share common ancestory with whales? CTRL-F search the word moth here maybe... http://www.arrivalofthefittest.com/seminar4.html

24. You say just having a universe that has always existed and mean a universe as in a universe without Him? Truth is truth regardless of whether or not we see anything as better than anything else perhaps. What suggests it's more likely He exists than does not exist? More than I will ever know maybe, but there's one or more post on page 20 that refers to some examples of things that are evidence for Him perhaps.

25. If scripture suggests He created certain kinds of creatures with an ability to bring forth after their kinds then is there any reason why we should believe that IS the case? There's a number of things I can get into including fulfilled prophecy found in scripture perhaps, but what suggests there were not certain kinds of creatures created that bring forth variety after their kinds?

26. We can't get a horse and a zebra to have offspring naturally? http://creation.com/zebra-or-horse-a-zorse-of-course

27. Do you claim that kinds can bring forth other kinds as well and that kinds have come forth from other kinds? If so, can you define kinds? If a kind is simply defined as an original created creature that can't naturally bring forth offspring with creatures of a different kind, then would that not be an illogical claim?

28. Do you claim there's precambrian sedimentary rock that's been radiometrically dated?

29. What would it say to me if you found an online resource that lined up 11,000 years of trees? Well I would look for evidence that seperate disturbances had been lined up in error and try to figure out how many missing rings had been inferred and what it said to me would come down to what I saw maybe, but what would finding even a single tree with 11,000 rings say if He has created full grown trees out of non-living material?

30. I'm not claiming there's been a stegosaurus with external ears, but who knows if there are modern and mainstream anatomical ideas regarding the Stegosaurus that are exactly right with no room for variation? Would it not make sense if there have been thousands of different breeds of stegosaurus? You will find some enlightening stuff below the words THE STEGOSAURUS OF CAMBODIA here perhaps... https://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3626

31. How many 9 plus foot skeletons were discovered in the 19th century and where can we see one now? http://www.stangrist.com/giants.htm

32. A giraffe? You refer to a Mesopotamian cylinder seal and here's an image we can compare with perhaps....



33. Did Marco Polo not write about living dinosaurs in The Travels of Marco Polo? Did he not suggest there were people hunting dinosaurs over 50 feet in length less than 1,000 years ago in it? http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3806

Did he not even claim a Chinese Emperor had a number of dragons which were used to pull his chariots in parades? Did Josephus not write about flying serpents in the Antiquities of the Jews? Did Herodotus not write of winged serpents over two thousand years ago? Does the Aberdeen Bestiary not clearly refer to one or more dinosaur? Is there not a city in France called Nerluc that was renamed in honor of a dragon with a horned head being killed there? Are dragons not mentioned as very rare but still living creatures in a 16th century four-volume encyclopedia entitled Historiae Animalium? http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/history/history.htm

34. How is depth of earth used to date sedimentary rock in a more than this is older than that sense if it is somehow?

35. If we come across multiple layers of sedimentary rock and we did not see them form, then who knows if they were deposited from flood waters or not?

36. Does the Colorado River delta contain 1,300,000 cubic miles of sediment now? Did you not suggest it contained about 10,000 cubic miles of sediment earlier?

37. How many human fossil skeletons have been found in general? Maybe there have always been way more non-humans than humans on earth and humans would be better able to avoid being buried alive than most. Is there really any fossil in sedimentary rock that's not the result a flood? Do you have any comment on this?



38. There's a geological explanation for everything geological maybe. How about we compare theories?

39. What does jointing have to do with Barringer Crater? An impact from something iron caused it perhaps. Who knows if an impact from a natural meteorite did or not?

40. You say we have no evidence to show that it was all deposited at once, and therefore, all wet? What do you mean by it, if so? Do we have evidence that whatever it is was not deposited with from a single flood? Maybe we shouldn't assume any river was cut through sedimentary rock or wet sediment.

41. Do you theorize that there's been enough flooding water to have stretched all the way from Echo Cliffs to Vermilion Cliffs? They are sides of a main canyon seen here perhaps...



42. And see barbed canyons there? What are they from if so? When do tributaries enter rivers at obtuse angles?



Top right section here that can help us put those in perspective perhaps...



Juan_Bottom,

Where did you read that Marble Canyon or Echo Cliffs or Vermilion Cliffs had lowest layers made of granite if you read that they did somewhere?

Jones,

Dinosaurs have lived since the flood and I've referred to little to no image showing preflood art depicting dinosaurs maybe. You might want to check out s8int.com and look for a section having to do with dinosaurs in art.

What have I not understood and ignored as a result? And do you say troll and mean a person who sends duplicitous messages hoping to get angry responses?

See blue lines below? What's truly random?



NOTE: I've come across formatting issues and there are misquotes in here and one or more quote that's missing one or more image and one or more quote that's missing one or more hyperlink and there are numbers that should appear differently and there are images containing words that are not my own in here depending on definition at least and it's now 2010 and not 2009 and I've said stuff wrong perhaps. Quote sources below maybe...

http://www.arrivalofthefittest.com/seminar4.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... into-birds
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/1106ng.asp

[BigBallinStalin]

Wait a second. Someone drew some lines on a pyramid and associated whatever meaning they wanted to each line? And then you and a few others believe this to be evidence?

And what about the "NOW" line? That's a bit ridiculous. Suppose someone made this pyramid scheme 20 years ago. It wouldn't match up at all. Oh but now or 2012 is a convenient time to add it, right?

[Lionz]

I horizontally flipped this and added lines myself perhaps...



2009 simply happens to be where it is and I didn't start with 2009 and work from there by any means perhaps. Do you want to know where any date comes from?

[BigBallinStalin]

I horizontally flipped this and added lines myself perhaps...


2009 simply happens to be where it is and I didn't start with 2009 and work from there by any means perhaps. Do you want to know where any date comes from?

Does your arbitrarily drawing lines on a pyramid count as evidence for creationism?