Pseudo-scientists versus Creationists
So, one of my former “Facebook Friends” outed himself as a Delusional Darwinoid, by posting and recommending an article that makes the assertion that arguing for Young Earth Creationism will most likely drive Christians from the faith. Because, you know, in order to keep people believing the Bible, one must assuredly rip out huge chunks of the Bible that do not comport with modern materialistic, naturalistic assumptions concerning the natural world.
The article centered on the new Ray Comfort video called “Evolution versus God”. The article’s author admitted that he only watched the first five minutes of the video, because he couldn’t stand to have his faith in materialistic, naturalistic pseudo-science challenged (well, that’s not what he really said, but that’s what happened). So, this article’s author, along with my former “Facebook Friend”, and several others, joined the community of dunces nodding sagely and expounding on how super-duper smart they were for believing pseudo-scientific flapdoodle, and what a bunch of liars us Creationists are. He also said more than once that I didn’t really understand the theory, and that I should educate myself. I get that a lot. Funny that no one is willing to answer my questions, though, to ensure my enlightenment.
For example, I asked this fellow (the “FB Friend”) what observed evidence we have that amphibians evolved from fish. He equivocated and dodged and ignored, naturally, because no such evidence exists. He did make the spurious claim that “macroevolution” (that is, molecules-to-man evolution) is the result of accumulated adaptations that we actually observe within a species. The claim is, of course, nonsense; no one has observed an accumulation of “microevolutionary changes” to its fulfillment in a change in “kind” (sort of like our modern “class”, or possibly “order”). No, “macroevolution” is both an unobserved and unobservable phenomenon. Even the True Believers in Evolution will (grudgingly) admit this; after all, evolution just “takes too long” to have actual observations of it occurring. So, the Delusional Darwinists must rely on extrapolation and hypothesis to tie, say, the T-Rex to the modern chicken.
Speaking of which, the article’s author jumped in, and said that we were on the verge of changing a chicken (which, he claimed, was really a dinosaur) into a dinosaur. He admitted that there was no real evidence supporting the Evolutionary Hypothesis that anyone besides a Delusional Darwinoid would find persuasive. In his article, he said that he nearly abandoned the faith because a group of Christian friends told him that he couldn’t believe in Jesus and the Evolutionary Hypothesis. It is a nonsensical claim, of course; many true believers maintain a preposterous belief in Darwin’s pseudo-science. However, it is interesting that if forced to choose between Jesus and “science”, the author would abandon Jesus. Freaky.
Theologically speaking, it is the Delusional Darwinoid Christians who truly threaten the faith of other Christians, for they teach that man’s fallible ideas are superior to the Word of God. They make God out to be a kind of liar, claiming that He “dumbed down” the creation story so that the “ignorant and backward” people of the Bronze Age could understand it. Nevermind that the Bronze Age people probably had a much greater intellectual capacity, on average, than modern man. They also believe, apparently, that millions of years of death and suffering preceded mankind…who is to blame for death and suffering due to his rebellion. As a new “Facebook Friend” of mine pointed out in a Youtube video he made: “Every major doctrine of Christianity is based on the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis.” Excellent point, my friend.
For God and Free Trade 
October 2, 2013 at 3:59 pm
“So, one of my former “Facebook Friends” outed himself as a Delusional Darwinoid, by posting and recommending an article that makes the assertion that arguing for Young Earth Creationism will most likely drive Christians from the faith. Because, you know, in order to keep people believing the Bible, one must assuredly rip out huge chunks of the Bible that do not comport with modern materialistic, naturalistic assumptions concerning the natural world. The article centered on the new Ray Comfort video called “Evolution versus God”. The article’s author admitted that he only watched the first five minutes of the video, because he couldn’t stand to have his faith in materialistic, naturalistic pseudo-science challenged (well, that’s not what he really said, but that’s what happened). So, this article’s author, along with my former “Facebook Friend”, and several others, joined the community of dunces nodding sagely and expounding on how super-duper smart they were for believing pseudo-scientific flapdoodle, and what a bunch of liars us Creationists are.”
Maybe your friend was obnoxious but I hate reading articles like this that name call and label and make broad generalizations about entire groups of people like this, including from “my” side of an issue. There is one anti-creationist blogger on wordpress whose blogs I constantly have to skip over and ignore for the same reason. If you honestly want information on the subject I would be glad to provide you with some, but could we have a civil discussion?
“He also said more than once that I didn’t really understand the theory, and that I should educate myself. I get that a lot. Funny that no one is willing to answer my questions, though, to ensure my enlightenment.”
I have patiently tried to provide evidence to many creationists, but the response I usually get is to be ignored, or have the evidence dismissed, often before it is even viewed.
“For example, I asked this fellow (the “FB Friend”) what observed evidence we have that amphibians evolved from fish. He equivocated and dodged and ignored, naturally, because no such evidence exists. ”
I just got done reading the book “your inner fish” written by one of the paleontologists who discovered one of the more important intermediate fossils between fish and amphibians. They didn’t just dig up the fossil, they were specifically looking for it in a particular part of the world, a particular geological period, and a particular environment where logically it must have evolved. It was a fish that had arm, wrist and digit bones that appeared shortly (in geological terms) before the first amphibians appear in the fossil record. It has characteristics diagnostic of both groups, to quote wikipedia:
Fish traits:
fish gills
fish scales
fish fins
“Fishapod” traits:
half-fish, half-tetrapod limb bones and joints, including a functional wrist joint and radiating, fish-like fins instead of toes
half-fish, half-tetrapod ear region
Tetrapod (land animal) traits:
tetrapod rib bones
tetrapod mobile neck with separate pectoral girdle
tetrapod lungs
We also have earlier fish that lack some of these bones, showing the gradual appearance of the bones in our own arms. This is just some of the evidence.
“He did make the spurious claim that “macroevolution” (that is, molecules-to-man evolution) is the result of accumulated adaptations that we actually observe within a species. ”
Is it so hard to accept that humans were once single-celled organisms? After all YOU were once a single-celled organism and developed gradually into a baby, and eventually an adult. Your organs did not suddenly appear all at the same time, they developed gradually in incremental steps, and at no point did you die.
“The claim is, of course, nonsense; no one has observed an accumulation of “microevolutionary changes” to its fulfillment in a change in “kind” (sort of like our modern “class”, or possibly “order”). ”
The term “kind” has no scientific meaning and the passage stating that god let living things reproduce “after their kind” is arbitrarily taken to mean that, for instance, dogs only produce dogs. But it could mean that mammals only produce mammals and never produce reptiles or birds. Or it could mean animals only produce animals and never produce plants. Or it could mean eukaryotes (which includes everything from animals and plants to certain kinds of microbes) will only produce eukaryotes, as opposed to bacteria and other non-eukaryotes. Or maybe it means something else. Or maybe it means nothing and we’re reading into it what we want it to say. It is after all one word, not an essay on the complexities of biology.
“No, “macroevolution” is both an unobserved and unobservable phenomenon.”
We’ve never directly observed a thousand years of change in a language – but we know languages change a lot over a thousand years because we’ve got texts from different eras and we can compare modern dialects and confirm that they have a common origin (everything that uses the 26 letter ancient roman alphabet we use sprung originally from a common tongue thousands of years ago). We can do the same with species by examining fossil evidence and DNA.
“Even the True Believers in Evolution will (grudgingly) admit this; after all, evolution just “takes too long” to have actual observations of it occurring.”
No, like languages changing we can observe it happening all the time, it just takes more than a human lifetime for those changes to build up to the point where a language becomes dramatically different from it’s original form. But again we can observe this indirectly through other lines of evidence.
“So, the Delusional Darwinists must rely on extrapolation and hypothesis to tie, say, the T-Rex to the modern chicken.”
Hypotheses can be tested experimentally. We’ve found 24 species of feathered dinosaurs, we know birds descended from dinosaurs.
“Speaking of which, the article’s author jumped in, and said that we were on the verge of changing a chicken (which, he claimed, was really a dinosaur) into a dinosaur.”
That isn’t what the article actually says. They’re just talking about switching on de-activated genes to discover things about earlier, extinct dinosaurs. Chickens have genes for traits no chicken has, like teeth. And humans have genes for things no human has, like making egg yolk proteins. We used to lay eggs, now we just keep them inside until they begin to hatch. The amniotic sac a baby grows in is anatomically the same as the amnion in a chicken, reptile or fish egg, and it contains a yolk sac. If you don’t believe me, look it up.
“He admitted that there was no real evidence supporting the Evolutionary Hypothesis that anyone besides a Delusional Darwinoid would find persuasive. ”
I’m sure those are his exact words.
“However, it is interesting that if forced to choose between Jesus and “science”, the author would abandon Jesus. Freaky.”
Science is observable and testable. If you thought the bible said the sky wasn’t blue, what would you conclude?
“Theologically speaking, it is the Delusional Darwinoid Christians who truly threaten the faith of other Christians, for they teach that man’s fallible ideas are superior to the Word of God.”
The bible is the word of men who claimed to speak for god (as thousands do even today, in many religions) which was edited, voted on and codified by other men for reasons only known to them.
“They make God out to be a kind of liar, claiming that He “dumbed down” the creation story so that the “ignorant and backward” people of the Bronze Age could understand it.”
It isn’t dishonest to withhold information your audience would not be able to comprehend. If your child asks you where babies come from are you going to show them a porn video? Is it dishonest of you not to?
“Nevermind that the Bronze Age people probably had a much greater intellectual capacity, on average, than modern man.”
And you know this how?
“They also believe, apparently, that millions of years of death and suffering preceded mankind…who is to blame for death and suffering due to his rebellion. As a new “Facebook Friend” of mine pointed out in a Youtube video he made: “Every major doctrine of Christianity is based on the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis.” Excellent point, my friend.”
Stories with talking animals and enchanted trees are generally not meant to be taken literally. If your argument is that taking it figuratively is problematic because christians have taken it literally for so long and built so much theology on top of that interpretation that it’s hard to admit they might be wrong, what kind of argument is that?
October 2, 2013 at 4:02 pm
Oh, and there are species of fish that survive to the present day with lungs (lungfish) and species of bony fish and sharks that have leg bones and digits in their fins and “walk” on the floor of oceans and streams:
October 2, 2013 at 10:09 pm
*I just got done reading the book “your inner fish” written by one of the paleontologists who discovered one of the more important intermediate fossils between fish and amphibians. They didn’t just dig up the fossil, they were specifically looking for it in a particular part of the world, a particular geological period, and a particular environment where logically it must have evolved. It was a fish that had arm, wrist and digit bones that appeared shortly (in geological terms) before the first amphibians appear in the fossil record.*
“In his description of this fossil, evolutionist Shubin states the front fins look basically “like a scale-covered arm” with “bones that correspond to a shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm and a primitive version of a wrist” (AP 2006). Shubin is speaking of an unstable macroevolutionary cornerstone called homology. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Zoology defines homology as, “the fundamental similarity of a particular structure in different organisms, which is assumed to be due to descent from a common ancestor” [my emphasis] (Allaby 1992). The word assumed means supposed or taken for granted. The whole theory of homology assumes macroevolution to be a fact.
One should note that the bones in Tiktaalik’s fins have no axial skeleton connections. This is significant because without this direct connection, no true walking could be done by Tiktaalik. Furthermore, the fins of this creature enclose rays, not digits such as toes or fingers.”
http://www.icr.org/article/tiktaalik-our-ancestor/
October 2, 2013 at 10:14 pm
I should point out that this “transitional form” would not be so very noteworthy, were the “molecules to man” evolutionary hypothesis factual, because we would have hundreds of these types of finds already, finds that would encompass a range of class, order, and species level organisms, not to mention actual living transitional forms that could be pointed to for confirmation (“See? This population of amphibians is slowing changing into reptiles.”). Instead, the Delusional Darwinoids must interpret fossils according to their presuppositional metaphysics, and then intimate that anyone who is skeptical of the evolutionary hypothesis is “stupid” or a “science hater”.
October 2, 2013 at 10:18 pm
*“Nevermind that the Bronze Age people probably had a much greater intellectual capacity, on average, than modern man.”
And you know this how?*
By extrapolating backward through time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/people-getting-dumber-human-intelligence-victoria-era_n_3293846.html
October 2, 2013 at 10:27 pm
*Stories with talking animals and enchanted trees are generally not meant to be taken literally. If your argument is that taking it figuratively is problematic because christians have taken it literally for so long and built so much theology on top of that interpretation that it’s hard to admit they might be wrong, what kind of argument is that?*
Eisegesis is an improper method of interpretation. The Book of Genesis is clearly historical narrative, and is relied upon throughout the rest of the Bible to explain God’s dealing with mankind.
October 2, 2013 at 10:28 pm
*Science is observable and testable.*
Neither of these descriptors can honestly be applied to the “molecules-to-man” evolutionary hypothesis.
October 2, 2013 at 10:30 pm
*Hypotheses can be tested experimentally. We’ve found 24 species of feathered dinosaurs…*
Really?!? Now this IS exciting news. Where do these feathered dinosaurs currently reside? In a zoo? Or, perhaps, in some remote area previously unexplored by man?
October 2, 2013 at 10:32 pm
Bronze Age adults were hardly child-like in their capacity to learn, understand, and think. Really, the hubris is breathtaking, if expected.
October 2, 2013 at 10:33 pm
Language is a product of intelligence. See the difference? It changes over time because intelligent agents act to change it.
October 2, 2013 at 10:34 pm
*We also have earlier fish that lack some of these bones, showing the gradual appearance of the bones in our own arms. This is just some of the evidence.*
No, we have Delusional Darwinoids pointing to fossils of animals and interpreting hard in an attempt to prove that their pseudo-scientific hypothesis can be taken seriously.
October 2, 2013 at 10:39 pm
*Is it so hard to accept that humans were once single-celled organisms? After all YOU were once a single-celled organism and developed gradually into a baby, and eventually an adult.*
Seriously? Is this an oblique reference to “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”? Because I don’t think anyone actually believes that any more.
I was a “single-celled organism” that had all the necessary genetic information to develop into an adult human. Bacteria do not contain the genetic information to develop into anything but bacteria; fish do not contain the genetic information to develop into amphibians, etc.
October 2, 2013 at 10:42 pm
*The bible is the word of men who claimed to speak for god (as thousands do even today, in many religions) which was edited, voted on and codified by other men for reasons only known to them.*
Meh. If you don’t believe, why do you bother?