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Author | Topic: Which view makes sense of the fossil record ? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
It can be shown and proved by deduction alone that an "order" especially a generally established order, because it is fixed means that logically it is not possible to alter the arrangement, NO MATTER WHAT THE ARRANGEMENT MEANS.
So if you create a meaning that is posteriori, I can't refute your model. Example, let's say that I say that the fossil-order represents creatures that existed, and none-found ones, did not exist. (Argument from silence). Yet the coelecanth and whales exist today, but are not fossilized together. Indeed, sometimes organisms will be found in eras they were thought not to exist in, (failed predictions/failed models). Because the, "order" is already established, I can't refute ANY theory that incorporates the order, logically. (read the blog entry for more details) Creation and evolution views: The Fossil Order So the order itself, can't be conflated with a particular explanation of that order, as though the order represents the explanation. The fossil "order" represents the fossil order. Association with the order, like "guilt by association" is NOT "success by association" EITHER. I think part of the problem with people at a forum like this is they tend to concentrate on the one creationist that is present on the forum and perhaps not read the latest items of interest and news given by official Creation-scientists such as the PHDs at Creation.com that have covered these issues quite in depth. So then the one outnumbered creationist, perhaps not able on their own to cover every issue, is deemed to represent ALL creationists. But that's not fair, we can't expect Faith to represent the official scientific explanation given by Creation scientists.
What alternative can Young Earth Creationism offer that is anything like as sensible ? The scientists at places like creation.com, have given extensive answers. But it's hard to get evolutionists to read those answers given they don't value anything we say, and have already concluded we are wrong about everything we say. what tends to happen is people at forums like these will take the representative creationist argument by the one creationist member, as the "best" argument from creationists. That way, politically, the evolutionists guarantee themselves a victory by omission. They might do this innocently, unwittingly, or on purpose, but it is so. Faith is just one member, not the official, relevant PHD expounder of Flood-models. If you want to know more (readers), go to creation.com they have over 8,000 articles, in depth, many of them covering these issues completely. These are my views, I won't take Faith's position, to be honest I prefer to give my views at forums like this, and then let people decide for themselves. I'm sure you will enjoy the last word, if that pleases you. All the best. Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
What is unfortunate is they feel the need to explain the entire fossil record as being caused by one single cataclysmic event That's a way out-of-date view that amazes me. Haven't you heard of the Pre-flood and Post-flood boundaries? Scientists at CMI have been giving their views about the boundaries for YEARS. I can't believe you are this mis-informed about what we believe! Read my blog-entry link in my previous post. Indeed the fossil record was known, that's the point!!!! Defining the Flood/post-Flood boundary in sedimentary rocks - creation.com Obviously as Oard mentions, our own ignorance is at play. Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
I had an encounter with Faith. I can't vouch for what Faith says, only what I have read Creationist-Scientists say and I say. i have read some of her posts but they were not to me.
I don't want to judge or misrepresent Faith here, or make ad hominem comments about Faith, but if you read my thread about "Help with Probability" I had an encounter with Faith maybe three pages from the last page. I would be very grateful if you could read my comments as we were debating each other in that thread, so perhaps you should judge for yourself. We have made friends now, but obviously creationists can disagree and there is a level of education that exists, that must be observed. The PHDs at creation.com, I treat as the official creationist arguments of the day, personally, rather than seeing particular members we come across, as THE standard by which we are all judged. For example I've learnt a lot from the likes of Jonathan Sarfati PHD and Chess-master, a brilliant chemist that has an extensive knowledge of a variety of subjects. I myself try not to "play the scientist". I can only comment about things I have knowledge about.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
But you can: Just find a fossilized modern organism in an ancient fossil bed. Okay. Pollen. Cockroaches. Again, you haven't read my blog-entry, so you are offering me a Red-Herring. The only reason you can make that request is because of a sleight-of-hand. But you won't understand the sleight of hand until you read the blog-entry I gave Paul K a link to. Fossils wrong place - creation.com Fossil pollen in Grand Canyon overturns plant evolution - creation.com
but I can and do refute creationist arguments I'm sure you do, but the term, "creationist" can mean Jane that has never opened a book before, or a fully qualified scientist. I suspect Faith would admit she is not a fully qualified Creation scientist.
I don't come here to just go to other place. I come here to talk to people. Fair enough, but at least hear me out please. The blog-entry shows why the request to find a human in the Cambrian is a Red-Herring because the fossil record have never belonged to Charles Darwin. Because certain animals are found in certain places, it's a rigged game, you already know that I don't have the ability. I drawn a diagram in that blog entry to show the trick you are playing, whether wittingly or unwittingly. But you will have to use your considerable thought-power to understand my points.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
This seems absurd. It is of course possible to refute theories that incorporate facts. That wasn't my argument, so this is a genuine strawman . Seems you've read too quickly. My point was that once you attach your theory to something that can't be refuted, it is easy to then conflate the theory with the facts themselves. It is quite common for evolutionists to use the fossil record as evidence for evolutionary-order, by matching it to the fossil "order". But the fossil order has nothing to do with evolution. For example, Darwin was not going to argue that humans are the ultimate ancestor of all lifeforms, or vertebrate fish. That would contradict the fossil-order. The evolution theory has to match up with the fossil order. so I am very far from confused or rambling. I think it is dishonest and improper for you to suggest I am, given I am far from it.
This is more confused rambling. This is an assertion, a bald one.
If the theory is the best explanation available for the facts, then those facts are evidence for the theory. Simple, easy Simple, yes. I agree it is a simple statement. Evolution isn't the best explanation of the facts, and evidence doesn't belong to any theory, if a number of theories will fit the evidence. It's circular. Even if evidence is for the theory as you state, this is of no relevance because of affirmation of the consequent. Even if it was the best explanation, this doesn't mean it is the correct one.
Of course it is quite clear that this is just a silly strawman. You only STATED that it is "quite clear", you didn't prove it, you just asserted it baldly.
And Mikey offers yet another strawman. You really seem to think just stating things ad nauseam proves a great deal don't you? I think it proves you have no answers to the information I presented.
So really your objections are both dishonest and improper. Well, since moral-relativity collapses under it's own premises and your worldview shows that morality only exists between your ears, then "dishonesty" and "improper" things can be regarded as giving me some sort of evolutionary advantage, and since having an evolutionary advantage is MY set of moral values, it is illogical for you to believe that these two sins you mention should have value to me, since my values do not incorporate honesty and improperness, as a naked-ape, just trying to survive and pass on my genes. Why should I deem dishonesty and improperness, YOUR morals, as MY morals? If morals are relative, then YOU should incorporate MY morals. On a serious mikey-note, since I am not answerable to you morally, I will not defend myself regarding the "dishonesty" and "improper" statements. You have to prove it is dishonest to request we are not all judged by Faith's standard of posts. But if a defend myself, that will mean I am answering to you, morally, I will dignify your statements by giving a defense, and since I don't see you as righteous, I feel no need to defend myself to a mere sinful man.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
That's fine. Faith is also not up to date then, but a lot of creationists such as I and the folk at CMI, incorporate a flood-boundary as a conjectural part of our model. It seems very much as though the evolutionists here didn't even know this, otherwise the blanket-statement would never have been mentioned because it's effectively to shoot ones self in the foot.
From your posts you seem to think I am defending Faith. I am not. You forget that I too am a bible-believing Christian that accepts creation, and I reject evolution and at least disbelieve in the millions and billions of years that oxygenates it.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
The order in the fossil record is a fact, and no different from any other in that respect. Which was the point of my blog-entry. When an evolutionist asks us to "show a human in the Cambrian" they do so knowing there aren't any preserved there, which has nothing to do with evolution, and everything to do with them not being preserved there. This is posteriori. Before the theory of evolution, there still wasn't a man in the Cambrian but we were not asked to provide a man in the Cambrian before evolution, which proves a conflation of the fossil order, and an evolution-order.
It is quite common for evolutionists to correctly point out that the order in the fossil record is evidence for evolution. It isn't because the fossil-order was known BEFORE evolution. It is only " weak evidence" for it in the sense that Darwin stated that an evolution occurred that matched this order. So it is astonishingly weak evidence, given he wasn't going to say that the order didn't match the fossil order, was he? Nobody "decided" that the fossils showed an evolution except him, it was not apparent, and still is not apparent to many. By saying evolution occurred according to the right pattern, well all I can say to that is, "give me strength", because that is the EASIEST thing to do, it is a free-lunch.
But is is not true that the fossil record has to match up with evolution to anything like the degree it does. The many transitional fossils, for instance, do not even have to exist - are not expected to exist, if creationism is true. Nor is it true that the fossil record could not match up with the order given in Genesis 1, which would support Old Earth Creationism, or for what order there was to be more plausibly explained by the Flood as Faith would claim. Even the Precambrian rabbit - if there were no other vertebrates in that period - would be hard to accommodate into any theory of how evolution happens. So it is not sufficient to say that evolutionary theory would simply match any order that exists. Different orders could favour evolution much less and other views much more than the order that we have. This only works because Darwin knew the fossil order already. If he had predicted the fossil order, then the order would be strong evidence. A pre-Cambrian rabbit would not disprove evolution because evolution is plastic, they would just push back the evolution of mammals. Indeed, they already have because of things like mammal-hairs being found in amber, and mammals in dino-bellies. "The many transitional fossils" is a bald statement, you know that we do not regard a handful of fortunate candidates to be relevant compared to the MASSES of intermediates that are MISSING, conspicuously. So you assume I am to agree with you that transitionals exist. But you need to read ALL of my blog-entries.
If your claim that Faith was seen as a real expert on YEC, such that defeating her is a defeat for all YEC was true then you could have produced evidence for it. That I point out that it is obviously untrue in no way means that the responses I gave to your arguments do not exist. But the evidence is that one poster believed "creationists" believe the whole fossil record is explainable as one event. That posters response is enough evidence to show an attitude that people only believe what they come across, even you in the opening message said things about Creationism, not just about Faith. So your responses, well, I'll concede your responses "exist", a bit like the fossil record. Yes it exists, and it has Darwin's signature on it, but let's face it, it was there without that signature.
Well Mikey, my honesty may be irrational by your standards, but it is the way I am and it is not going to change. However, your view is wrong even by your standards. Whether honesty is the best policy or not, being obviously dishonest is usually worse. Don't be deliberately obtuse. The example I gave was of the silliness of relative-morality, and how it has no basis. You have just stated that "being dishonest is usually worse" but if I have an evolutionary advantage in being dishonest, then what do you mean by, "worse"? My "view"? What view, I was using Reductio Ad Absurdum. The whole point is that it is not my view. That is the point of pretending I am a moral relativist. Didn't you even notice that? The point is I do believe in honesty, because I have a Christian basis for morality whereby dishonesty actually exists not just in my head, but can apply to everyone, because God does care and has said to not bare false witness. Meanwhile you have merely stated I am dishonest, but I don't know why yet. Seems you just made a wrong call. But even if I was dishonest, it would be arrogant, given your worldview, to assume I should value your morals, since they would only be relevant to you. If there is no ultimate right or wrong then lying and telling the truth would be matters of personal interpretation. You are truthful and honest, because really you know that there is ultimate reality to right and wrong, because you are made with a conscience, and made in the image of God.
I only have to support my actual accusation, and that is it is dishonest for you to claim that Faith's arguments are taken as the best there are for Creationism. But they clearly are, here on this forum. That is not dishonest, because one evolutionist told me I believed what Faith did about the flood "creationists", and your opening message was about Faith, but then you stated things about Creationism in the same message. But even so Paul, my first comment about that issue was only conversational. It's not dishonest to make a general observation that evolutionists will use the creationists they come across as the way to study the creation model. In a way this isn't even deliberate I would say, it is just natural to do that, my only request is that folk don't use out-of-date arguments about us based on their own limited knowledge. This thread has proven that kind of attitude does indeed exist. It is the same with evolutionist organisations and TV programs, they either won't include creationist views or else they edit it so that it seems those views are nutty. This is sinful behaviour common among people but you don't have to qualify yourself as being one of those people, I am just saying it exists, because it does exist, I've experienced it.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
This appears to translate as "It's unfair of you to invite me to prove that you're wrong when you know perfectly well that all the evidence proves you right." Yes, so it does. But if we were wrong, it needn't. Consider the following dialog: A: John is dead.B: No he isn't. A: Prove me wrong, then. Show that his heart is beating. B: This is a rigged game, we've already taken his pulse and know that he doesn't have one. You already know that I don't have the ability. But taking John's pulse is a perfectly fair test of whether he's alive or dead. The fact that B won't find a pulse --- and knows that he won't find a pulse --- is not a sign that it's an unfair test, it's a sign that A is right and B is wrong. Why do you do this to yourself? You know what's coming next Dr A because I always get checkmate. Are you masochistic? Your analogy isn't accurate, because it only would represent the fossil record and I am not saying there isn't a fossil record, I am saying there isn't an evolutionary-order, except the one assigned to match it by Darwin et al. A. There is a fossil record.B. No there isn't A. Prove me wrong, show there isn't. B. This is a rigged game, we already have seen there is a fossil record, you know I don't have the ability to change that. Here I have highlighted your sleight-of-hand. You haven't understood the coloured-balls diagram in my blog-entry. Think about it. You are arguing two things, not one. 1. There is a fossil record.2. There is an evolution-history that matches it. I would ask: "why does it match it?"The answer you would have to give is; "Because Darwin wrote that it did." Think about it, would he, knowing the evidence, predict that the forms at the bottom were the most recent, modern forms? So whatever the fossils showed, would guarantee an evolution-pattern. THINK! if the fossils were reversed, he would have said that humans were the common ancestor of many forms, because they would be at the bottom. Thus whatever the fossil record shows, was always going to fit with evolution, no matter what the record means in actual fact. You see I can refute an evolution-order, but I can't refute a fossil-order, because a fossil order is a fact but evolution isn't, so what evolution has to do is make it's evolution-order the fossil order, so that it can't be refuted by definition. But new evidence is starting to show that the actual evolution order is not true, as new fossil-order comes to light. So then as more mammals are found alongside dinosaurs, what do they do? They match it again. Thus, the plasticity of evolution is preserved, and you hear it in their statements all the time such as, "it seems mammals were already quite well developed and modern given this hair preserved in amber" So they. "push back" evolution and IGNORE the incorrect evolutionary prediction. Think of it like this; I find three balls on a table, one is blue and on the left, two are red and on the right. I then have a theory that they have been placed there because there seems to be an order. I state in my theory that the red ones on the right were put there on purpose and then I demand; "now refute me by showing there is no order!" Well now please answer my question Dr A, just how exactly can I refute you if you have GUARANTEED that the evidence is in complete harmony with the theory? I can't change the balls, even if your theory is false. Just as I can't change the fossils even if evolution is false. Perhaps, actually, the balls were rolled on there randomly? Are you saying that is impossible? The fossil record is interpreted as a grave-yard of evolution instead of a graveyard of a mass-burial, watery catastrophism, generally speaking. Inundations. We also see at Mt St Helens, a small canyon with strata that if it had not happened in the 1980s would have been concluded to have been made perhaps over thousands of years. We know how rapid burial is an excellent cause of preservation etc...there's no point in going into all that though.
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mike the wiz Member (Idle past 245 days) Posts: 4755 From: u.k Joined: |
A rabbit in the Cambrian would falsify the theory. A cow in the Pre-cambrian would falsify the theory. A humming bird in the Carboniferous would falsify the theory. Because we know rabbits aren't found in the cambrian, as marine life generally is. Because we know a humming-bird is not found in the carboniferous, yet birds have been found in dino-bellies. We won't find a cow in the pre-cambrian because we know they're not there, tends to be small lifeforms, note that pollen has been found in the pre-cambrian but evolutionists have labelled such evidence, "anomolous" In fact they would actually just argue contamination, and I have read that they have done this before. They also cast doubt on potentially compelling evidence such as human footprints (Laetoli) or even the human and dino footprints found together. It is at least interesting evidence but in one book Dawkins just says it's fake even though they shown how it wasn't fake. You are setting up easy targets, and knocking them over. Logically I can prove that I can play the same exact game you're playing: HERE:
We have twenty balls on a table, they are mixed up but might show some kind of pattern, by chance you get three red balls close to one another. I now have a theory that they are placed there on purpose. I show you 3 reds in position 1, two blues in position 2 and 2 greens in position 3. Now if I am wrong, please show a blue in position 1. Please show a red in position 3. Please show a green in position 2. Thus I can't refute you because your theory "matches" wherever the balls were placed.
Then produce the theory. The first thing you need to do is explain why the fossils fit into the same nested hierarchy that living species fit into. The observed nested hierarchy is what every theory must explain. Creationists have. They've shown we can produce a nested hierarchy for design-features in human designs, such as wheels, engines, etc... I will have to fish for the links, it's not a subject that I regard as impressive. Your post is elephant-hurling. Then you would need to explain why an incorrect theory keeps making such accurate predictions. Like pollen in the pre-cambrian? Or that we would find missing all of the missing chains? Or predictions pertaining to homology, that don't match up after all? I would say failed predictions of evolution are exciting to me and awesome, because as time goes on things like retrogressive and vestigial organs are negated. Homology is negated, the ridiculous, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is negated. The mammals in dinos bellies were not predicted, nor grass in the dino-age. There are loads of failed predictions of evolution, but you simply won't agree, even though I read all of the time statements by evolution-scientists expressing their amazement about what they find, because it was not predicted or expected.
We could determine that humans were not the ultimate ancestor without looking at the fossil order at all. We could do that with both genetics and cladistics using living species. Darwin could have done it with cladistics only. So you are wrong on this one. It doesn't prove anything, you just think it does. It is tautologous that more similar creatures will sometimes have similar genetics, but the opposite is also true with homoplastic, or analogous examples, wolves and various insects that look the same but their genes aren't. What they do then is absurdly say that evolution converged to create the same things, such as eyes, some forty times over. ROFLMAO! Lol! Where is the proof? Nowhere! You are just committing the elephant-hurling fallacy by quoting all of the accepted mainstream science that has already been refuted by scientists at CMI. Do you think the same old canards, regurgitated in various different forms are going to somehow now impress me given the mass of evidence for design and creation? Some things also only make sense by design-constraints. There are no intermediate avian, contraflow lung intermediate. Evolution would have took the path of least resistance and modified a bellow-type lung instead, like with the bat, not produce and ingenious through-flow system that is incredibly complex and only works together with the bird's anatomy. And we see this empirical evidence everywhere. The Seahorse is an example of a vertical fish, the path of least resistance? Lol! No way, it is designed, and has no ancestors. Indeed, there are no ancestors for bats, that have full echolocation preserved in fossils for us to see. Pterosaurs and Pterodactyls, no ancestors, no ancestors for turtles. And that's what we see, that incredibly complex designs that are required for the specific creature are there, and unique, and aren't modified. The Giraffe's bone neck-structure, not modified, ball and joint. The sea-slugs have special spikes connected to the scilia-hairs internally, it collects these little weapons from a formidable prey, and they are taken to the spikes on it's back. Had to be designed, it's that simple. We see the path of most resistance that shows complex designs that aren't modifications, and have no evolution-reasons to exist, because they are simply needed for the job the critter needs to do. Design is everywhere, and evolution is a royal joke in comparison. It never ceases to amuse me that anyone can take it's tenuous so called tautological, circumstantial evidences, seriously. I mean seriously, just grow up, it didn't happen, and "science" as an epithet won't prove it did. Get on your knees and admit he's there, and stop this nonsense. You are a man, not an animal, and you ask why and you bloody well know why you do, and the other billions of species don't. Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.
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