Can the history of life on earth be proven to be the result of any natural process?

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Roy

Animals (and plants, but not rocks) were known to fall into a morphological nested hierarchy more than a century before Darwin came up with the idea of evolution.

Try believed?

The earth was believed to be flat for millennia. It was no more right or proven than Nested Hierarchy is now.

@Roy

The genetic nested hierarchy has been built up from sequenced proteins and genome sections, the data used is largely publicly available for inspection and confirmation, and so is the software for generating the hierarchies.

And that still proves what?

@Roy

Where is the lack of certainty?

Not in your mind, for sure.

Richard

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@T_aquaticus

Where did I dismiss the proposer instead of the details? Be specific.

When you show me that I do. because that was not what I said or meant in the post you parrotted it to.

Richard

[T_aquaticus]

@RichardG

When you show me that I do. because that was not what I said or meant in the post you parrotted it to.

So no, you can’t point to where I have dismissed the proposer instead of the details they have presented. Thanks for the clarification.

[Roy]

@RichardG

@Roy

Animals (and plants, but not rocks) were known to fall into a morphological nested hierarchy more than a century before Darwin came up with the idea of evolution.

Try believed?

No, known, because some-one generated that hierarchy.

But apparently you aren’t aware of that, despite supposedly having taken training in biology and having examined evolution for decades.

@RichardG

@Roy

The genetic nested hierarchy has been built up from sequenced proteins and genome sections, the data used is largely publicly available for inspection and confirmation, and so is the software for generating the hierarchies.

And that still proves what?

That animals (and plants) fall into a nested hierarchy.

It says nothing about why animals and plants fall into a nested hierarchy, but the hierarchy is definitely present.

@RichardG

@Roy

Where is the lack of certainty?

Not in your mind, for sure.

So despite disputing the merit and certainty of animals falling into morphological and genetic nested hierarchies, you have absolutely nothing to back that disputation up.

You’re nothing but empty words. All mouth and no trousers. A cojone-free zone.^[1]

---

1. This last line is so you have something to reply to which doesn’t require any knowledge, expertise or thought on your part. ↩︎

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Roy

you have absolutely nothing to back that disputation up.

Why do i need anything new? I am just not convinced by the “mountains” of evidence you (et al) have presented. Are you claiming superior understanding? (yes) but that is al it is. it is a claim, based on your view of my posts here. Do you really think I bare my soul here? Do you bare yours?

You know nothing about me other than what I have revealed (sound familiar?) So, go ahead, make your judgements and assertions. It makes no difference other than to bolster your already over zealous ego.

This forum has no weight, no authority, and no status. It is not a scientific forum although it has some scientific content. neither is it a Christian forum inasmuch as it does not promote Christianity although it has Christian content and participants.

It is a forum.

Richard

[St.Roymond]

@Buzzard

@St.Roymond

The sad truth is that it is almost impossible to find an article on AiG or Creation-dot-com or similar sites that don’t have lies.

You’ve got to wonder if mental illness plays a part in that sort of mendacious behaviour.

I’ve never quite gone there, unless asking, “What is wrong with these people?” qualifies. I once spent most of a day trying to find some honest articles on one of the YEC sites as research for a response to a question I’d been asked, and just kept getting more and more baffled.
I think most of them don’t even know they’re doing it; they just echo what they’ve been told, and fit everything into predetermined categories that make it impossible to see what’s actually being said (a phenomenon quite common here in discussions as well).

@Buzzard

@St.Roymond

I once saw a mishmash from Origin of Species that were not only separated by as much as over a hundred pages but were out of order, strung in a way to give a different impression than what Darwin’s words meant.

That’s so stupid. There’s no excuse for that sort of dishonesty.

It got defended as “showing what Darwin was really up to”.

@RichardG

You are claiming that you do not need to know precisely how things evolved., but, because they are here, they must have!

No, the claim is that the trails are observable, so we know that the footsteps follow them. To make the analogy fit evolutionary science better, we’ve even found dozens of signs along the way to show where hikers went – a crude latrine here, a campfire there, foliage crushed where a tent was placed somewhere else.

@RichardG

You think that you do not have to know exactly how the progression worked, only that it must have

No – only that it did – there is no evidence otherwise.

And I argue that because God is faithful, not capricious.

@Roy

It looks innocuous until you notice there are two reference numbers, and see this:

27. ibid, p459.
28. ibid, p 192.

Ah, the phenomenon of trust by footnote! Back in the day, a footnote was worth something; it indicated that a scholar had examined a source and was employing its content properly. So most people when seeing a footnote assume that its mere existence establishes trustworthiness.

@Roy

Denton didn’t just skip some pages, he skipped from page four of one 350pp book to page 96 of a different book published eight years later.

In any course I took above the 100-level, that would have gotten not just an F on the paper but ejection from the course – and these people call themselves scholars?!?

@Roy

To the extent that for a while, creationist articles were marked on a scale of how many lines or sentences there were before the first error, fallacy or outright lie.

Double-digit scores were rare.

The really crafty ones spend three paragraphs or so setting things up to make the lie believable.

@RichardG

The fallacy is to think that because you see errors that conflict your view, you have to dismiss the lot.

1. Errors have nothing to do with “view”, they have to do with fact.
2. “The lot” gets dismissed because given that it’s basically impossible to find a YEC article that doesn’t lie, it isn’t worth the effort to bother looking further – it’s like going to a certain water fountain dozens of times and it always has sulfurous rusty water and deciding to stop going there.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

You think that you do not have to know exactly how the progression worked, only that it must have

No – only that it did – there is no evidence otherwise.

Lack of evidence is no evidence. Like taking the 5th. It proves nothing except by insinuation.

@St.Roymond

And I argue that because God is faithful, not capricious.

Repetition of a disputed assertion is a waste of time.

@St.Roymond

Errors have nothing to do with “view”, they have to do with fact.

Black and white. I live in a wider spectrum.

@St.Roymond

it’s like going to a certain water fountain dozens of times and it always has sulfurous rusty water and deciding to stop going there.

And, of course, it is not worth filtering out the impurities. You might get drinkable water.

Richard

[leesouthard (George Lee Southard)]

Dear Buzzard, Your thought is a good and one on the minds of many thinking people. I looked into this over the past few years and I believe the following.
I think the weight of the evidence support an evolvement of life over time with both macro and micro evoution involved. I consider that a strong indication of proof but maybe not absolute proof.
The evidence for a six-day creation does not exist but that does not mean that the events described in Genesis 1 and 2 did not happen.
The evidence we know is the result of natural processes and God could have set natural processes in motion to achive his goal of human beings to be saved. That is in agreement with God’s plan of salvation given in Ephesians 1:4-10.
That there was a creation and an origin of life including man over time is obvious so the evidence needs to be aligned with Genesis 1 if we are to understand the relationship between the two. The writers of Genesis had no knowledge of the evidence so they wrote from what they knew and understood.
I believe the two can be aligned even though in the evidence view Adam was not the first man. Importantly, even though Adam was not the first man there is still agreement with Romans 5: 12-19, the cornerstone of Christian Theology that Adam brought sin into the world and Christ paid the price for that for us.
I do not see evolution as an enemy of the faith but I do see evolutionism as an enemy. I think we all need to keep our minds open as the evidence will continue to unfold.

[St.Roymond]

@Buzzard

For all we know, there could have existed a vast number of organisms that weren’t fossilised that could have “qualified” as ancestors of extant life-forms.

For all we know, the entire universe was created a week ago at 10 a.m. Moscow time.

Besides which, when you have good ancestral candidates right at hand, playing “for all we know” is childish.

@Roy

Errors. Obvious errors, independent of worldview. Such as incorrect calculations. Or mistakes in citations. Or misspelt names, or using the wrong formulae, or not knowing what continent places are on.

Or pretending metamorphic rocks can form in a week. Or ignoring the known angles of repose of different types of soft sediments. Or claiming there are no cracks in rocks in a formation that is known for the cracks in the rocks. Or pretending that tectonic plates can gallop along with no heat of friction generated. Or pretending that crystal deformation isn’t a known and measured process. Or . . . scores of other blatant falsehoods AiG and others pass off that are “unmistakeable and inexcusable” even for atheists, let alone for Christians.

@RichardG

@T_aquaticus

We don’t reject the arguments from Flat Earthers

Ad hominem. Dismiss the proposer, not the details.

Reject the whole thing because of the people and their beliefs. It wouldn’t be possible to get the right answer from the wrong direction. They are not real scientists.

Have I forgotten anything?

Yes – you forgot to read the whole sentence and understand what it said.
The lack of respect is mind-boggling. You have an agenda and don’t care how much you have to ignore and distort what people write in order to push it.

@T_aquaticus

We reject the claims of Flat Earthers because we can go up in a space ship, look back, and see that it isn’t flat.

And because every summer for twenty-plus years I have climbed ladders to trim trees and watched ships appear from behind the horizon as I ascended a ladder and disappear as I descended.
And because I have gone swimming in a lake where from shoulder-deep in the water a resort at the other end of the lake wasn’t even visible but it appeared from the top down as I waded up out of the water.
And because I have gone sky-diving and seen the curvature of the horizon.
Among other things.

@T_aquaticus

Then I guess it’s a good thing that we have the transitional fossils.

Which biologist (paleontologist?) a while back noted that at this point all new fossils are transitional?

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

Yes – you forgot to read the whole sentence and understand what it said.

@T_aquaticus

We don’t reject the arguments from Flat Earthers because they conflict with our Globe Earth views. We reject them because they don’t comport with the objective facts in reality.

You seem to think he was referring to flat earth

@St.Roymond

And because every summer for twenty-plus years I have climbed ladders to trim trees and watched ships appear from behind the horizon as I ascended a ladder and disappear as I descended.
And because I have gone swimming in a lake where from shoulder-deep in the water a resort at the other end of the lake wasn’t even visible but it appeared from the top down as I waded up out of the water.
And because I have gone sky-diving and seen the curvature of the horizon.
Among other things.

I thought he ws reffering to flat earth.

I was not arguing that the flat earth paat was correct. So,

@St.Roymond

you forgot to read the whole sentence and understand what it said.

would seem to be a false claim.

But perhaps you didn’t read my post properly, just as you accused e of doing to him.

Richard

[Roy]

@St.Roymond

Or claiming there are no cracks in rocks in a formation that is known for the cracks in the rocks.

If some-one stands in front of the cracks, they no longer exist!

(@Buzzard, do you know about this one?)

[adamjedgar (adam james edgar)]

@Paraleptopecten

@Buzzard

Please explain again how evolution managed connect the poison gland of a venomous snake to its hollow fangs. Btw, no one can sensibly explain how the hollow fangs evolved, either.

Well, this was shared higher in the thread, so this statement is wrong.

@klw

I’m not a snake biologist but here is a paper about the evolution of “hollow” fangs F.Y.I.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.1391

oh i have significant doubts about that statement…even the study itself makes the observation in its abstract that snakes likely independantly evolved hollow fangs…this means that the evolutionary trail isnt able to determine how this occured via normal darwinian methods…thats a red flag for me and it damages the claim actually. When we have mutliple sources of these kinds of things, that almost certainly points to controlled design in a number of different snakes…that also means the different types of snakes who have these fangs, that they also didnt evolve but were designed.