Young Earth Creationists

[PedroPonyLikesCrisps]

I know Young Earth Creationists exist, I've seen them on telly, but never met one in real life, so I'm just wondering if anyone here is one or knows one or whether they are actually just incredibly rare and reserved for extreme tv debating!

back oh yes it easy to see where the idea of species comes from...I just have no idea why it has survived so long.

I am almost angry on the YEC's behalf.

They have a totally valid argument that evolution doesn't lead to animals that can easily be split up into different 'species'.

The only problem is that the real world also doesn't have animals that can easily be split up into different 'species'.

So the argument is one that biologist are daft and not one that YEC is correct.

I don't think that biologists cling to the idea of boxes at all.

Talk Origins (where scientists of lots of different disciplines go to address every single YEC claim) puts it like
this

Some of this has probably been asked before but this thread moves too fast for me!

Let me get this right, YEC think the Earth is around 6000 years old? That Noah took different Kinds of animals on his ark and all animals today are descended from those Kinds. That young dinosaurs were taken on the Ark so T-Rex and co not only lived and died out in the last 6000 years, but also co-existed alongside humans.

The usual theory goes that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, and some catastrophic event like an asteroid wiped out most life on the planet, including the dinosaurs.
There were quite a few dinosaurs knocking around, judging by the fossil evidence. What the hell happened to them all if they were around in the last 6000 years?

Also, upthread best mentioned that some scientist thinks that even billions of years wouldn't be enough for the range of species today to have evolved from single cell organisms.
But the range of species today is supposed to have evolved from the few animals that could fit on the boat in 6000 years?

How do YEC explain Madagascar, with its species that are found nowhere else on Earth?

If bones were found that were thought to belong to Jesus Christ there would be no way of substantiating the claim Aside from the fact that if we found the bones of JC it would prove that the resurrection never happened - which was specifically emphasised as being "bodily", not just spiritually.

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well Yes. I was responding to Bests list of things that would prove him wrong. 1 being if we found the bones of JC. My personal opinion is that we could well find the bones of Jesus and just not know it. There are enough documents to suggest that the man himself was real. I personally dont believe he was the litteral son of God ....

The fact that "species" is often hard to define is good evidence AGAINST creationism. They insist that the Bible states that nothing changes beyond it's "kind". Something so fixed and unchanging would not be hard to define....piece of cake, actually. It's this shifting sands situation, that Best himself acknowledges that throws the whole "kind" thing out of the window.

Best Did you define macroevolution for me, as I asked? You said you accept speciation, but that's "subtly different" from macroevolution.

I was agreeing with you, January - and adding on an extra bit. You're right - unless we could track down a lineage (no one expects descendants!) there'd be no possible way to verify it. Another totally untestable claim.

There are enough documents to suggest that the man himself was real Oh, but there really aren't . I'm involved in a thread debating evidence for Jesus which is about to be resurrected - join us? It's interesting when we're not getting too snitty .

argh, seriously, why do I keep coming back.

People who say they are atheists but aren't... well I could counter with people who say they are christians but aren't. There are plenty of those. I don't really feel the need to tell people that they aren't what they think they are.

Mutations loosing info. Well yes that does absolutely happen. However, that is only one of the mechanisms of mutations. There are a number of others. Inserting information (viruses can do this) which could have a neutral effect, be a positive effect or a negative effect. Transposing the same information to somewhere else, again negative, positive or no effect. There are a number of other ones, my kid learned that when studying genetics and replicating genes in the lab of our local safari park in 7th grade (age 12).

I know answers in genesis say that that is loosing info, but I don't agree. It can be a loss of info or it can be a change of info. A change is not always a loss unless you are playing semantics. If I change my dollar bill into 100 cents, yes I have 'lost' the dollar bill if you wish but the majority of people would think you had lost the plot if you described that as a loss. Especially as with cents and bills you are able with mutations to go back and forth. Sometimes when mutations change the dollar bill you end up with 98c, sometimes $1.25 and often you end up with 98c and a piece of trash but that is ok because you needed the change more than you needed the dollar bill. The majority of people would think you still came out ahead in the gain department if you got the change you needed.

Re: swearing. I think the argument about swearing meaning one is loosing is silly. It could simply be that one likes to swear. I personally can find it colourful and interesting at times, funny even. Personally I think that this website is not really for you if swearing upsets you.

Giraffe, perhaps the red ruffed lemurs were arguing with the fossas and Noah said "so help me God, if you lot don't stop bickering I am going to stop this boat and make you get out!"

spoony

There are enough people who don't need to swear in discussions to make it worthwhile staying spoony :)

Is anyone else slightly worried that the news that the definition of species is not a) particularly useful b) relevant to the ability of the theory of evolution to explain the world around us, has actually caused best some sort of injury?

That was that one apoplectic outburst and now it has all gone quite....

self yes I was trying to delve into the definition of information loss (oops nearly wrote entropy...that probably wouldn't help) but unfortunately we got side tracked.

Sorry, Pedro, I misspoke. I meant "Weak Anthropic Principle," not "Strong," and in my opinion it is question-begging. It essentially says the constants are finely tuned for life because if they weren't we wouldn't be here to discuss it.

An oft-used illustration is this: You're standing blind folded before a firing squad. One hundred trained, expert marksman have their rifles pointed at you. You hear the gunshots ring out and to your surprise, you are still alive. What happened? Did they use blanks? Did they miss on purpose? A reporter asks you how you survived and you say, "If I didn't, I wouldn't be here to answer your question." Not really a sufficient solution. I would accept the multiverse before that. I just think the God hypothesis is more parsimonious with greater explanatory power.

?This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in ? an interesting hole I find myself in ? fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.?

--Douglas Adams

Sorry, Pedro, I misspoke. I meant "Weak Anthropic Principle," not "Strong," and in my opinion it is question-begging. It essentially says the constants are finely tuned for life because if they weren't we wouldn't be here to discuss it.

Oooh an apology, that's rare, I'll take that and pop it in the semantics collection tin

The problem is, your analogy isn't very good because the anthropic Principle doesn't aim to answer the question of how we came to be here as in your analogy of how you survived, rather it explains that we would not be here if the universe was different.

Perhaps you can give an example of how we humble life forms could be here discussing the universe if the laws of physics were not such that life could be supported. If you can do that, I'll concede.

"Oooh an apology, that's rare"

Look back at my posts. I've apologized several times to different people - - even you - and usually when it is due to a minor mistake on my part so no apology is warranted. You, on the other hand, continue to name-call and berate me, yet I continue to treat you with the utmost of respect. I will continue to do so no matter how bad your behaviour becomes. You only discredit yourself further.

Guys, it's not that I don't understand what you're saying about the fine-tuning. It's that I think my explanation is more reasonable.

NG, the problem with Adams' puddle analogy is that, according to physicists, the odds of the constants being finely-tuned the way they are is so statistically improbable as to be impossible whereas the formation of a puddle is not.

Science is the search for causes. Those causes must be sufficient causes and greater than their effects. If we can just assert that certain observations are merely a brute fact, not only does that destroy the whole method of science, but then I can say God exists because He does and I win the argument by default. Not a rational way to discover truth.

Best, the thing with probability is that in an infinite universe, even the statistically very unlikely might be expected to happen. After all, someone wins the lottery most weeks.

"Sorry to be grim again but children are born with extra limbs etc. It can come out of small changes very rarely."

Extra limbs don't count. The genetic code already contains the information to make a limb. Due to a mutation it just made an extra one in the wrong place. And it is not better off for the child because it makes it really hard to find t-shirts that fit.

While I have you here, ICBINEG, and since you seem to know what you're talking about, let me ask you this:

If evolution is true why are the best examples we have of beneficial mutations in animals eyeless fish that live in caves and wingless beetles that live on windy islands? Where is all the evidence (not speculation) for how beetles got wings and fish got eyes in the first place? And why is the best example of a beneficial mutation in humans sickle cell anemia which provides resistance to malaria? As one guy put it, it's a little like saying if you cut off your leg, you can't get athlete's foot. Where are all the examples of the trillions of beneficial mutations that must assuredly have existed if evolution were true? Benign mutations are the most common but deleterious ones outnumber beneficial ones by something like 1000 to one. Over time, that tends to drive organisms to extinction not to greater complexity.

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/02/mutation-gene-tibetans-altitude

"You can't predict something which already happened."

Pedro, please . . . think about what you are saying. I'm talking about predicting evidence before it is found - not before it occurs. If what you say is true, it would be impossible to predict anything about evolution since most of it happened before humans were even around.

"Since you've asserted so many times that you are extraordinary precise with language, I can only conclude that you don't understand science even a little bit when you make statements like this."

Considering the colossal blunder in logic you just made, this comment is laughable.

"Nobody has 'redefined' species. There are many different species concepts around, all routinely debated by free-thinking scientists - have you not come across these in your 6 years of reading?"

Yes Islets, I'm referring to how it used to be defined as "two organisms that can no longer interbreed and bring forth fertile offspring." When they found some different species could, they added, "but don't typically mate in the wild due to different breeding cycles."

They did the same thing with vestigial organs. They used to be defined as an organ which serves no function. When they found out they did, they changed it to "changed is function." They just keep changing the definitions to fit the evidence rather than let the evidence speak for itself.

so statistically improbable as to be impossible

I hit a golf ball the other day and it landed on a patch of grass. One out of how many hundreds of thousands - it just couldn't happen could it. It's so statistically improbable as to be impossible.