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!

"Sorry, not sure what point you trying to make here. It's doesn't change the fact that your arguments are underpinned by assumptions that I do not accept."

The first part was explaining that assumptions aren't necessarily without evidence. I realize that you don't accept them. But I'm asking you to accept them temporarily for the sake of the discussion so that we can move forward to the young earth evidence. Have you never put yourself in someone else's shoes before? You should try it. You can learn a lot.

"I do not accept this assumption either. the organism would not die out because of a mismatch between beneficial and nonbeneficial mutations. you are leaving out the vast majority of bacteria that show no mutation at all!"

I can't start this conversation with you. Go back and read the entire thread and then maybe we'll talk. This is between me and ICEBENIG right now. Sorry. If you have questions about young earth creationism I haven't answered yet, I'll be happy to.

*"Steno essentially abandoned science after his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1667"

Whoa-ho! Oh, the irony.*

If you had read the book (which is pretty balanced by the way), you would know he came from a staunch Lutheran background and converted to Catholicism, as catholicism fitted in more with his beliefs. He left science as he wanted to devote his life to converting Northern Europeans to the RC church. I have copied the text below from the UCMP website which sums up the main theme of his work in geology:

"Steno himself saw no difficulty in attributing the formation of most rocks to the flood mentioned in the Bible. However, he noticed that, of the two major rock types in the Apennine Mountains near Florence, the lower layers had no fossils, while the upper ones were rich in fossils. He suggested that the upper layers had formed in the Flood, after the creation of life, while the lower ones had formed before life had existed. This was the first use of geology to try to distinguish different time periods in the Earth's history -- an approach that would develop spectacularly in the work of later scientists"

He was a pioneer in the field of geology

"Steno's landmark theory that the fossil record was a chronology of different living creatures in different eras was a sine qua non for Darwin's theory of natural selection"

The creationist links you put about about Steno are just more really good examples of manipulating quotes to fit into ideologies. Did they interview him to ask what he was inferring in his quotes?

Anyway - read the book - very good read and I'm genuinely surprised you have not come across it on your studies! He was a very important scientist in his time. I see him as a gifted scientist (read up on his earlier works on anatomy) AND a deeply religious man, who was called to mission work. In letters in his later years to Johannes Sylvius, he showed concern over the Bible and his Lutheran indoctrination to 'read the Scriptures and you will know the truth', but now doubted that was enough. He asked Sylvius, "which version of the scriptures should he read? Which was divinely inspired? And whose interpretation should he accept?" He also said, "The Bible was inspired by God, but was not his literal word, only an approximation".

The first part was explaining that assumptions aren't necessarily without evidence. I realize that you don't accept them. But I'm asking you to accept them temporarily for the sake of the discussion so that we can move forward to the young earth evidence. Have you never put yourself in someone else's shoes before? You should try it. You can learn a lot.

you may ask me and I may say no. that is a fair position for both of us to take. I thought, if you read my posts, that was the exact point I was making.

However:

This is an insulting final sentence given you actually know next to nothing about me. I am choosing to assume that you did not intend to be patronising, but I am afraid that, throughout this thread, this does appear to be how you dismiss those that you do not wish to interact with.

Your following reply to me is another example of this.

Offending to try to maintain an upper hand is no strategy in logical debate. i am disappointed in you.

Given that this is how you are choosing to operate, I will bow out. I have no wish to spend my Sunday reading attempts to offend me.

I have read the thread BTW, just so you know.

I think 1% was being generous but what you're forgetting is that the negative mutations were 10 times the beneficial ones so the organism would die before it could achieve any meaningful evolution.

And 24 hours per generation was being generous too, but the exponential increase in population puts even the tiniest of percentages to shame. You seem to misunderstand evolution here.

Of those 1 billion bacteria, 100 million have beneficial mutations. So gives a crap if every other bacterium dies from a harmful mutation? Although not all would because not all those mutations would be bad enough to kill them, but if they did, you still have 100 million bacteria in 10 hours which is plenty to carry on the species (or 'kind' if you wish).

We don't know that. The only thing we know is that they can.

Even if that's the case, it isn't that they didn't.

Dawkins once said that even if there were absolutely NO evidence for evolution, he would still believe it. Says a lot doesn't it?

Again slightly taken out of context. But yes, it does say a lot. Because the way this all works is that there's no evidence AGAINST evolution. Nothing, nada, zip, zero, nil. If there were, it would have been dismissed as a theory.

It's perfectly acceptable to have theories with no supporting evidence. It's that evidence which proves against that theory which is important.

What scientific evidence is there for the existance of God Best and that he gave this book of contradictory rules to a guy called Moshe?

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817122405.htm

This may help you wr mitochondrial eve

So in order for us to accept that your creation hypothesis is true, we have to first assume that it is?

I know that's not what you think you're saying, but when you strip it down in fact you are.

We could all do that, couldn't we?

Me: Scientists - I have a theory about the beginnings of the universe.
Scientists: OK?
Me: Please first assume that my belief is correct that it was started by a giant cosmic purple farting hippo called Nigel
Scientists: OK. We'll accept that - because that's what we do. We accept things for absolutely no good reason.
Me: My model predicts that if I'm correct, hippos should be evident in nature as a mortal incarnation of Nigel, we should feel his farts as wind and the colour purple should be pleasing to the eye.
Scientists: Makes sense.
Me: Well, hippos exist. Wind exists. Purple is a pretty colour.
Scientists: My God...that's amazing. And we thought Einstein was clever! Can I have your autograph?

Come on, Best. Really?

I don't accept your God exists because I have no reason to - and science doesn't work like that.

You begin with an observation. Develop a hypothesis to explain that observation. Test, test, test. Present your findings to your peers. They test, test, test. If they can't prove you wrong, then you may be on to something.

or this

www.livescience.com/10015-age-confirmed-eve-mother-humans.html

sorry you have to copy and paste I am on the android app it doesnt make clicky links easy.

best I think you are seeing 'beneficial' and 'harmful' in way way too black and white a way.

An organism can survive to reproductive age with huge numbers of mutations that cause havoc up to and including removing entire signalling pathways...because of the inbuilt redundancy in the system.

Each of us personally on this thread has millions of 'harmful' mutations in our code..but most of us already have kids!

In genetic engineering of say mice, you can identify key functions and proteins and knock them out entirely without preventing the mouse maturing.

Most mutations are FAR FAR more conservative than that.

So you could have an entire series of thousands/millions of 'harmful' mutations without making a significant difference to the reproductive capabilities of the organism.

The extent to which a negative mutation affects the organism depends on environmental pressures....

"That's not powerful evidence for the truth of the bible. That would be like suggesting that if a boy was found with a lightning scar on his head that it would be powerful evidence for the truth of Harry Potter. It's not."

I wanted to respond to this earlier. Pedro, the problem with the oft-made Harry Potter analogy is that we can tell by the context and style of the literature that the intent of the author is to write fiction. So no one would predict a literal boy to be found with a lightning scar on his head.

But with the Bible there are many forms of literature: poetry, prophecy, wisdom, parables, allegory and, yes, history. The Harry Potter analogy just doesn't work unless you can produce evidence that the historical parts of the Bible are meant to be read as fiction. Because they have been confirmed and vindicated hundreds of times by archaeology, I doubt you could do that.

"If you had read the book (which is pretty balanced by the way), you would know he came from a staunch Lutheran background and converted to Catholicism, as catholicism fitted in more with his beliefs."

I was just poking a little fun at Catholism there, Islets.

"Anyway - read the book - very good read and I'm genuinely surprised you have not come across it on your studies!"

I will. Me too. It sounds quite good.

"In letters in his later years to Johannes Sylvius, he showed concern over the Bible and his Lutheran indoctrination to 'read the Scriptures and you will know the truth', but now doubted that was enough. He asked Sylvius, "which version of the scriptures should he read? Which was divinely inspired? And whose interpretation should he accept?" He also said, "The Bible was inspired by God, but was not his literal word, only an approximation"."

Interesting. Thank you again for the recommendation. I will get the book and in the meantime I'll continue to read up on Steno online, in books I own and those I can get from the library. Hey! I'll check my library for the book! What a radical idea! I'll go there tomorrow! (Now, I'm excited!)

"This is an insulting final sentence given you actually know next to nothing about me. I am choosing to assume that you did not intend to be patronising, but I am afraid that, throughout this thread, this does appear to be how you dismiss those that you do not wish to interact with."

I deeply apologize, Ship. It was not my intention to offend you. Please come back. I just can't rehash things I've already written about ad nauseam. And if you aren't willing to step into my shoes temporarily, you will never understand where I am coming from. You don't have to actually BELIEVE my assumptions, just pretend you do for the sake of the discussion. I'm not sure why it seems so difficult for some people. I certainly have no trouble doing it.

"Even if that's the case, it isn't that they didn't."

Right, Pedro but that is known as an argument from silence and is logically fallacious. It is more reasonable to believe that they didn't until we have more evidence that they did.

A similar example is the genetic code. All the codes or languages we know of are created by minds. We know of no known natural process that can create information. Therefore, it is a rational inference to the best explanation that DNA came from a mind. If we find evidence to the contrary, I will change my mind and likely become an atheist.

"What scientific evidence is there for the existance of God Best and that he gave this book of contradictory rules to a guy called Moshe?"

I have supplied several links throughout the thread, Infamous. I just can't write it all out on this forum because it is off topic.

Got your links, January, thanks. I'm already aware of them and will respond later. :^)

"So in order for us to accept that your creation hypothesis is true, we have to first assume that it is?"

No quite, Ellie. This thread is not about my creation hypothesis or evidence for God's existence. It is about young earth creationism.

I could have this same discussion with a theistic evolutionist who believes God used evolution over millions of years. She would already accept my 3 preliminary assumptions and the questions would switch from, "How do you know God exists?" and "How do you know the Bible is true?" to "Why do you think the Bible teaches God created the world in 6 literal days?" and "Why do you think evolution is false?"

"I know that's not what you think you're saying, but when you strip it down in fact you are."

No, it really isn't, Ellie.

"We could all do that, couldn't we?
Me: Scientists - I have a theory about the beginnings of the universe.
Scientists: OK?
Me: Please first assume that my belief is correct that it was started by a giant cosmic purple farting hippo called Nigel
Scientists: OK. We'll accept that - because that's what we do. We accept things for absolutely no good reason.
Me: My model predicts that if I'm correct, hippos should be evident in nature as a mortal incarnation of Nigel, we should feel his farts as wind and the colour purple should be pleasing to the eye.
Scientists: Makes sense.
Me: Well, hippos exist. Wind exists. Purple is a pretty colour.
Scientists: My God...that's amazing. And we thought Einstein was clever! Can I have your autograph?"

A cute story and it made me smile but it's irrelevant to this discussion.

"I don't accept your God exists because I have no reason to"

And I don't accept your lack of a god because I have plenty of reasons not to. But those reasons are irrelevant to this discussion. I have posted links to my evidence for God numerous times throughout this board.

"and science doesn't work like that.
You begin with an observation. Develop a hypothesis to explain that observation. Test, test, test. Present your findings to your peers. They test, test, test. If they can't prove you wrong, then you may be on to something."

An excellent description of the scientific method and one which all young earth creationists agree with - namely because WE invented it.

"best I think you are seeing 'beneficial' and 'harmful' in way way too black and white a way."

That may be so, ICBINEG. I tend to be that way and I'm willing to learn.

"An organism can survive to reproductive age with huge numbers of mutations that cause havoc up to and including removing entire signalling pathways...because of the inbuilt redundancy in the system."

Yes, I get that. (Brilliant DESIGN, by the way. ;^))

"Each of us personally on this thread has millions of 'harmful' mutations in our code..but most of us already have kids!"

Some more than others. (Mutations, not kids.) ;^)

"In genetic engineering of say mice, you can identify key functions and proteins and knock them out entirely without preventing the mouse maturing. Most mutations are FAR FAR more conservative than that. So you could have an entire series of thousands/millions of 'harmful' mutations without making a significant difference to the reproductive capabilities of the organism."

Okay. So, how many have to build up before the organism dies? (I'm sure that's not worded in such a way that you can answer it but try your best.)

"The extent to which a negative mutation affects the organism depends on environmental pressures...."

I know what you're saying but don't think I completely agree. We've said beneficial mutations are only beneficial in relationship to the environment. But some harmful mutations are just bad regardless. I can't see it being possible to put any organism into an environment where cancer is beneficial, can you?

But keep going. We are getting somewhere (as long as certain people can hold off temporarily from jumping in and distracting us.)

An excellent description of the scientific method and one which all young earth creationists agree with - namely because WE invented it.

Can you back up this assertion?

Just curious . . . does anyone on here think that the 98.5% genetic similarity between chimps and humans is evidence for common ancestry?

"An excellent description of the scientific method and one which all young earth creationists agree with - namely because WE invented it."

Which one, Sunny? There are three propositions contained in the sentence:

1. That her description of the scientific method was excellent.
2. That young earth creationists agree with it.
3. We invented it.