Please Help Me

If you didn't create it how can you prove it happened? Since they can never prove God didn't do what He did (cause He did!), why worry about it? Do what the evilution converts do, ...just believe!

Well, Dyno, if you're still reading this thread, I can help you, but probably not how you want.You don't have a chance, you're going to get killed in a debate like that. Let me tell you how I know.Exactly nine years ago, I got on CompuServe's religion forum as a young earth creationist, armed with all the young earth info I could find. I am not the best debater around, but I am very good and tests say I'm really super at logic. I got slaughtered on the forum by the evolutionists--really slaughtered.I like to win all my debates, so if I lose, I generally switch to the winning side so that I can get back to winning. I did in this case, too. Now, here's the kicker.About a month after switching to the evolution side, a graduate of ICR's college showed up, prepared to defend young earth creationism. With one month of reading on my side, I answered all his questions and begged him to come up with something that would allow me to stay a young earth creationists. He told me I was biased like all evolutionists, that I wouldn't listen, and then he didn't even answer me!!! A graduate of ICR's creationist school! He couldn't compete with an evolutionist with one month worth of knowledge!Give it up, buddy, you don't have a chance. Take ae's advice and figure out that you don't need a literal Genesis One to believe in God, because the creation did not happen in seven literal days. Sorry.By the way, I still believe, and I live in a wonderful community of disciples of Christ who have all had to face the fact that facts are facts. Evolution happened. You can't win the debate you're in.

Now, having said what I said in post 17, I will tell you how I was the only debater on the creationist side to win a debate at our school last year (out of six debates--I was one of the teachers, and my students all took the evolution side, because I didn't want them to have to debate on the side of what's not true).The way I won was to make a long list of scientists, along with their credentials, who disagreed with evolution. I found a quote about John Baumgardner, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, that said he was a great scientist, written by an evolutionist, along with another couple references to good scientists who don't believe in evolution, and then I argued that if even scientists doubted it, how could us laymen trust it.Then, when my students would bring up evidence, I would try real hard to get them off the subject of their evidence by bringing up some point of mine, so the evidence for evolution was barely discussed at all.It was sneaky and dishonest, but, on the other hand, it was good training for the students, as I showed them later how I got them off subject and taught them how to remember what they want to say, not just get stuck answering what the other guy wants to say. I also didn't have to tell any lies, because it's hard to find evidence for young earth creationism that isn't made up or misleading. However, there are scientists, universally motivated by religion (which I avoided discussing), who don't believe in evolution.

What a fascinating story. How did the students react? How old were they? Did the experience of losing the debate have a negative impact, or were they encouraged at finding out that they were on the right track? I'd love to have some more details, and consideration of the pedagogical issues.I gather from your home page that you are involved in a small tight night Christian community. Was the school in that community? Are you a regular teacher there?Mor, more; I must have more! -- Sylas[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-24-2004]

Ages 14 through 17. They were irritated they lost, but those kids are my friends as well, so it's not like some bad experience. yes I was the last two years, but not this year. I am, however, what would be the equivalent of the youth pastor for that age group, if we had such a thing here. I recognize the term pedagogue, and I looked it up at dictionary.com to make sure I was thinking the right word. However, I can't say I know what issues you are referring to. The class was an attempt to cover a specific (though wide) science topic--evolution--and add some debate to the class. Overall, they were pretty pleased with themselves. One or two of the twelve in the class were pretty skeptical about evolution at the start of the class, but I made them express and defend what they were learning the whole year. No one got to learn silently. I've been told by others that I did a good job teaching them to learn and to think, and I hope that's true. I try very hard with all my kids to give them a passion for learning, and I also pressed honesty on them. I think if a person loves to learn, can be brutally honest, and can read, then they have no limits.My turn:I have noticed you on the boards for the first time this last week. You must be a scientist of some sort yourself, I would guess, and your posts are straightforward, reasonable, and readable (even for me! ). Are you a scientist, and what's your interest in the evolution-creation debate?

Not to jump on a personal question you asked Sylas, but do a search on talkorigins.org for Chris Ho-Stuart. Sylas is probably ONE of our better known posters from the EvC debate.

---

Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

You could argue about living fossils. Animals which we recognize today - despite them also being found in the fossils. You could say that they are stuck in an evolutionary rut, and if they haven't evolved in millions of years - they are never going to and never have. Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access Denied might help, look under evidence

And he's trying to separate his Inernet persona from his real-world persona. IMHO outing him isn't appropriate here. If he wants to be known under his real name he'll post under his real name.

Thanks muchly for the additional detail.My real name is in my profile here at EvC; and I have contributed under my real name for a long time through talk.origins. I have recently set up a new email address, which I now use also in talk.origins as well, and my hope is that "Sylas" will become my known pseudonym for contributing in these subjects. My identity is not a secret, so I have no major concerns about being "outed". However JonF is quite right that I am trying to establish a kind of distinct on-line identity. I've discussed this in talk.origins as well.One outstanding issue is my involvement with the talkorigins website and feedback column. After consultation with others involved in that website, I will probably maintain contributions there under my real name, not as Sylas.Pedagogy is the science of teaching. I have a professional interest since I am a lecturer in computing here in Australia. My formal qualifications are from a science faculty, but in fact they are nearly all maths and computing and automata theory. I don't consider myself a scientist. Most of my science knowledge is picked up by private reading.Cheers -- Sylas

That's okay, great info. I'm glad to hear Sylas was ok with it.I'm feeling pretty good now about recognizing quality. I told my three co-workers who now lurk here that that Sylas guy's posts are consistently awesome: clear and relevant.I'm afraid, however, that my students could have had a better science teacher. I figured since it wasn't really directly a science class, part debate, I would do well just to teach them how to learn, and then they could learn from real science teachers on their own, even as the mostly home schoolers they are.

Well, I'm off topic, and my last post was pushing that a bit, but if I can briefly says this on the science of teaching: My goal was to teach them to recognize the difference between quality information and gobbledy-gook, opinions, and lies. I think I did a good job at that. People I respect on this forum have told me my posts are consistently balanced, and people I respect in the village here have told me my students are noticeably sharp thinkers.I'm actually pretty proud of that, though that may be bad (edit: meaning the pride). Those who know me well have told me I'm one of the most honest people they've ever met, and that sometimes I come off really arrogant. Hopefully, I'm learning from both statements.[This message has been edited by truthlover, 02-25-2004]

You're the Chris Ho-Stuart? Wow, a celebrity in our midst! Good to see you here, mate! Always nice to bump into a fellow Aussie, too. I know how that goes. I am very much a "self-taught scientist" myself, if there can be such a thing. It's nice to know that someone as knowledgeable as yourself arrived where they are largely through their own personal research and private study. It gives me hope.

So first of all, don't take this anti-evolutionist stance. A good understanding of creationism should take into account factors such as genetic change, natural selection, even speciation!People used to think that asexual populations remained constant--they didn't change at all. However, they evolve [creationist stance!]. This is why, for example, care must be taken in administering antibiotics--bacteria can actually evolve immunity. But now, let's take a closer look at what's meant by "evolution" in this context. Are the bacteria still producing other kinds of bacteria? Have we developed "organelles" inside the bacteria (ie.protists), no. This important distinction needs to be made. Just because bacteria evolve into other kinds of bacteria, is not an argument that giant sequoias & blue whales evolved from a single cell! (A creationist would probably point out that the sequoia came from a seed of a sequoia, etc. traced back to some kind of a tree. As for the blue whale, its mother & father were both whales, that came from other whales, etc. so in the beginning there must have been 2 whales.)The vast majority of "evidence" for evolution: flowers evolving, horses evolving, wooly mammoths evolving into elephants, even the evolution of humans (modern day humans are not all clones of Adam & Eve--the human population has changed over time), all this can be analyzed very carefully. In each and every single one of these cases, we are not forming any "new" structures. We are simply taking an existing creature, and modifying various features it possesses. For example, the color/shape/size of petals may change over time, through changes in DNA, etc. But because flowers produce other kinds of flowers, we can't say that redwood trees, tulips, and mosses all evolved from a common ancestor!! This latter argument(err..flaw in reasoning) is what creationists object to.Perhaps the simplest way to refute the Darwinist viewpoint [I'm a little hesitant to say evolutionary standpoint, since even fundamentalist Christians accept evolution to some extent], is to trace the ancestry of a sexually reproducing creature, and the descent of an asexually reproducing creature. Take a bacteria--it splits into 2, each of those splits into 2, etc., etc. ANY descendant of that population has exactly one parent, correct? Now, take a human, you. You have a mother and a father. Your father has a mother(X) and father(Y). Your mother has a mother(X) and a father(X). Any ancestor of yours has a mother and father right? If a Darwinist accepts this, well, then that's easy, in the beginning someone must have created 2 of each basic kind (males & females of certain basic populations), as well as at least 1 of each asexually reproducing kind. If a Darwinist makes fun of this, well, you could turn around and laugh at him, saying he's a result of lizard sex, or that some of his ancestors were asexual. See if he wants to accept that!Speaking of which, we know that egg-laying creatures produce egg-laying creatures. So for example a duck-billed platypus comes from another duck-billed platypus that hatched from an egg, etc. But have we ever heard of an egg-laying creature giving birth to something that produces live young? Or could there even be a transitional form? If all mammals actually share a common ancestor (a common ancestor among a lion, bat, human, and a dolphin, that's hilarious!), would that common ancestor lay eggs? If so, we have the problem of how they would evolve the ability to produce live young (not to mention the huge evolutionary disadvantage--most of the creatures that are endangered in the world now are mammals, mammals that can only produce 1 child at a time, and if the mother dies, the child dies with her. Whereas an egg-laying creature can lay several eggs, no long pregnancy period. Think natural selection doesn't favor egg-laying creatures? Think about cockroaches!!) Whew! Not to mention, what rodents evolving aerodynamic wings and becoming bats? Or land-dwelling mammals falling into the ocean and evolving fins? If evolution is a slow process, wouldn't they drown before evolving such structures?It's much more logical to view the life around us as being designed, rather than through some sort of unnatural, birds evolving from reptiles, trees evolving from algae, scaly egg-laying reptiles evolving hairy warm-blooded mammals, and the fairy tale goes on and on. Don't take this the wrong way--"Universal common descent" definitely makes for a great movie, it's just that scientific evidence needs to be given to support such a far-fetched idea(fossils of humans & fossils of apes don't count, neither do pictures of horses changing over time)Hope this gives you some ideas! Except if you're going to make any mocking remarks about "macroevolution", make it in a more sophisticated way, as follows:So human DNA and ape DNA are very similar correct? Now, let's take the DNA of that orangutan in a zoo. Is there some chance that one of the bases in its DNA may become modified, through say UV rays, etc? Of course, it's entirely possible that *1* of the bases in that orangutan DNA can turn into a base in human DNA, and get passed down to its children. Over enough time, we can actually calculate the probability that all the orangutan DNA can "evolve" into human DNA. In fact, we're GUARANTEED to find a human in that zoo, we just need to get the right sequence of bases, and give it enough time. Surely a Darwinist would laugh at this, but then again, is it that much stranger to say that humans and orangutans evolved from a common simian ancestor?Regards,
Monsieur Lynx{Inserted blank lines between paragraphs. The system does not recognize paragraph indentations - besides, blank lines are still a good thing. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 06-09-2004 02:03 PM

Monsieur Lynx says:

quote:

---

But have we ever heard of an egg-laying creature giving birth to something that produces live young? Or could there even be a transitional form?

---

It may surprise you to learn that some sharks lay eggs and others give birth to live young. Does this mean they don't share a common ancestor? Is this another evolutionary fairy tale?I responded to a post of yours in another thread with this post, which deals with descent with modification. regards,
Esteban Hambre

Okay, you misunderstand the creationist standpoint. They certainly don't say EVERY species that exists was separately created! You're right--there must be thousands of species of crabs (I think arthropoda is one of the largest phyla there is). Why should each of them be separately created? One can easily envision a common crablike ancestor, that by accumulating mutations evolves into several different kinds of crabs.
However, here's the disclaimer: Because marine crabs & land crabs evolved from a common crablike ancestor hardly counts as proof that crabs, humans, amebas, and trees all evolved from a common ancestor!!
And yes, the fact that certain kinds of sharks lay eggs and others don't can be considered proof they don't share a common ancestor!! After all, if they did, would the said ancestor lay eggs or produce live young? If the common ancestor laid eggs, its descendants would also lay eggs, out of which would hatch egg-laying sharks, etc. If the common ancestor produced live young, then its descendants would produce live young, etc...you would never evolve egg-laying sharks from sharks that produce live young or vice versa!
And please don't make the argument from similarity--this argument has been used ad nauseum--the similarity can point to a common designer or a common ancestor (As a very crude analogy, all calculators made by Texas Instruments share similar features. However this doesn't mean they are all a modification of 1 calculator--rather the similarities show they're made by the same company)