The discussion is about evolution, not this warped magical view.
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Actually before the “right time”. If the trait isn’t already there, then its benefits can’t be had.
Splitting hairs again?
Whichever, timing is still crucial and beyond the “control” of ToE.
Richard
Sorry for your inconvenience!
I am Myeong Ho Park(is my real name)!
Yang_Sam_San is my nickname here, but on Google it is written without underscores.
And my blog is correct, too!
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Thank you for sharing your perspective. I respect your effort to connect scientific evidence with theological interpretation, but I would like to present a different view based on direct analysis and evidence.
First, the difference between assumptions and truth. Scientific models often rely on multiple assumptions. Radiometric dating, for example, requires assumptions about initial conditions, constant decay rates over billions of years, and a perfectly closed system. Yet initial conditions can be set in countless ways, decay constancy over such vast timescales cannot be verified, and closed systems rarely exist in reality. Remove these assumptions, and the calculation collapses. The results are therefore not absolute facts, but models dependent on assumptions.
Second, the authority of Scripture. Creation was carried out by God Himself, and the Bible is His testimony given through human writers. To dismiss creation as myth is to elevate human speculation above the Creator’s own witness. Whether others treat the Bible as literature or not is irrelevant to me. But if the Bible is declared to be merely a literary work, then I will not believe it. Once Scripture is reduced to human interpretation alone, its authority collapses, and faith loses its foundation.
Third, the Bible as fact. The Bible is not a collection of legends. It has been tested for thousands of years through archaeology, history, and even scientific inquiry, and it continues to stand as a record of real events and people.
Fourth, the limits of radiometric dating. Terms like “Young Earth Creationism” do not persuade me, because they are based on dating methods that themselves rely on assumptions. We must judge by removing those assumptions, not by accepting them uncritically.
Finally, the standard of scientific discussion. Genuine scientific debate requires more than repeating knowledge acquired through education. It requires direct analysis and verification. I have undertaken that process myself, publishing 57 papers on my blog, including 38 bilingual papers on Zenodo. My arguments are therefore grounded in evidence, not just belief.
I would kindly ask that you also bring concrete evidence and independent analysis to the discussion. Only then can we engage in a meaningful debate that truly seeks the truth.
Thank you.
False. Crystallization cannot incorporate daughter products. Decay rates are defined by the balance of fundamental forces and nuclear geometry, and cannot be accelerated without also destabilizing regular matter which holds together by the same forces. Whether the system is closed is a distraction, what matters is interaction and any such effective phenomena would also be lethal. You are just saying stuff that has no actual physical meaning.
There are always assumptions, it’s turtles all the way down. But radiometric dating is based on well understood nuclear physics and is real like nuclear weapons are real. Hezekiah’s tunnel has been dated by both radiocarbon and uranium-thorium and matches the Bible, so if radiometric dating is wrong, the Bible must also be wrong.
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Ahnyohasaeyo. Thank you!
Three of my aunts are Korean, and one of my best friends in grad school was, as well. We had some good discussions. He was atheist and Marxist, and felt that Jesus was a Marxist, as well. I told him he was probably right, but didn’t force anyone to do that!
My understanding here is that you are appealing to secular reasoning to support the Bible. is that right?
I grew up with A Beka Book, which appealed to inerrancy as a foundational principle and tautology; with “absolute” truth, it seemed that they could avoid questioning. I am sorry, but God is not afraid of questioning. I am so grateful for my dad, who was a YEC, but encouraged me to ask questions without fear. I think that’s what kept my faith–God must be just. He does not require my belief to keep faith and justice unshakeable.
Thank you. (Kamsahamnida)
Randy
Most evolution involves selection across already existing variation, rendering ‘timing’ irrelevant.
In some species, every possible point mutation has occurred, making the ‘right’ mutation inevitable.
Nor is there a ‘right’ mutation or adaptation. There are lots of possible adaptations, with multiple routes to each of them, and anything that works will suffice.
For many adaptations there have been millions of years of opportunity - hardly a timing issue.
Finally, evolution doesn’t require the ‘right’ mutation at all. Evolution isn’t linear. Even if there was a right adaptation that didn’t occur, the parent population might carry on just fine, possibly with different adaptations, while some other species took that niche.
Evolution doesn’t have goals, is not a ‘great chain of being’, and never was. Those are misunderstandings.
Added: There is a lot of useful information on common misunderstandings about evolution here.
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These claims are false:
Some dating methods include checks for these assumptions, some have good reasons why these assumptions hold, many can be checked independently, decay constancy can and has been checked by various means, dating results are too consistent for the assumptions not to hold, and scientists are neither blinkered nor stupid.
It doesn’t. The flood and the exodus are the two most obvious examples of events that weren’t as described. Even the verses about camels are dubious.
Yet you are repeating commonly posted false claims about radiodating.
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I think we are talking cross purposes. Any lineage is, by definition, linear.
I know that Evolution has no goals, but often the narratives use imply them. Perhaps it is just language and trying to “dumb down” science for public consumption.
However, much of my criticism seems hard to explain in such a way as not to get misunderstood or dismissed. I do not criticise scientists par se, or evolutionary scientists. I am not the only one to take things personally, whether they are explicit or implicit. Much of it is details and the tendency to universalise an example or specific principle beyond what I see as reasonable or accurate. The differences observed in the Galapagos are within species or subspecies, where as ToE extrapolates them to include much bigger changes, as if the size or dynamic is irrelevant (Time will do it). The notions of an “Impossible Change”, or "Irreducibility " are dismissed as “Creationist” or YEC and never addressed or (apparently) understood. Even if you do understand them your answers deny it.
There is also the problem of view, or “understanding”. I have had a long “discussion” with a Catholic over what is truth, and right, and so on. The same applies to science. Most of science can be seen in a black and white or precise manner, Evolution does not fall into that category, yet if I suggest this, I get shouted down with meteorology or gravity which are not the same. it is as if you call something “science” it is automatically confined to certain parameters or “rules”. Instead of correcting the view of distinction by assertion, try explaining why you see them as the same. I do not need the precise reference or paper, to understand why you think something is. I was taught that if you cannot summarise or explain something in your own words then you do not really understand it. All I seem to get is “Go look it up”
Then there is the nitpicking and splitting of hairs mentality of detail and precision that can be very annoying, as if such minutia has to be that important. (maybe in some areas that is so , but Evolution? Why?)
Richard
The foundation of science is reproducibility, repeatable observation, and verifiability. Current measurements of radioactive decay rates are facts, but extending them into billions of years of the past is only assumption. Science is strong in predicting the near future, but even those predictions are approximate, not absolute. Weather forecasts and GPS calculations prove that exact prediction is impossible.
Therefore, to claim that unverified assumptions about the distant past are scientific truth is dishonest. True science distinguishes between fact and hypothesis. To deny the inerrant record of Scripture while insisting that theories built on assumptions are certain is not science—it is belief without consistent foundation.
From now on, I will only respond to claims that are supported by concrete evidence and correct numbers. If an argument is built on assumptions or hypotheses, it is not fact but speculation. Science has meaning only when it uses verified data for reproducible experiments and predictive models of the future—not when it generalizes unverifiable guesses about the past. Therefore, theories that rely on assumptions are not objects of faith, but merely one possible interpretation among many.
True science must distinguish between fact and hypothesis, and only facts with measurable basis deserve to be used for prediction.
An assumption that has been tested against and verified by ice cores, varves, tree rings, supernovae, corals, natural nuclear reactors, continental drift, orbital mechanics, and correlation across different decay rates and mechanisms.
Scientists are neither blinkered nor stupid.
Your posts contain neither.
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No, it was not discussed. It was refuted.
Perhaps you do not see the difference.
I do not need to know what arguments there are against it, The truth is, neither you, or I can actually demonstrate it either way. And the problem with accepting, even the possibility is to see or find and alternative. IOW it is a negative argument against ToE. However it is not a negative argument against all of ToE And even if I suggest that just means insufficient either knowledge or evidence I get shouted down with “mountains of evidence”, that do not impinge on it.
This is not a win or lose argument. However, you (et al) seem reluctant to admit that there could be any shortfall or “Missing” links in ToE. The most you will do is condescend my right to believe it.
Try again
Richard
In your world the past leaves no trace, no record, because by your criteria only the future is subject to verification. By your definition, no amount of evidence can satisfy any question concerning what happened. We then can validate nothing of the past.
In the none delusional world, the past does leave a record, processes imprint their signature, events leave their scars. There are moments such as the Chicxulub event, separated by intervals such as geological epochs, and the effects did not magically vanish but remain. Annual cycles of cold and monsoons leave varves, layers, and rings. Sedimentary rocks are composed of materials which can only form so fast. Fossils are ordered in a progression.
The past not only can be investigated, but revealing the past is an unavoidable outcome of scientific analysis.
Nobody can stop someone from committing to willful blindness, but be aware that the typical YEC talking points that you have made are nonsensical and have no currency or credibility outside the bubble of the like minded.
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Thanks. You have a good mind. I think you’d really enjoy taking a course in genetics. I think you would do well. Thanks
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By the way, greetings. I would like to introduce myself. I grew up in Africa, the son of missionaries. I really enjoyed it, living in a country where everybody seemed interested in you and your history and daily life though that’s partly because we lived in the country I think. You could argue we learned more from them than we ever gave though my Dad loved working in the hospital as a surgeon. I still have friends from there. I work in Michigan now, where my parents came from, and also really enjoy it. I attend a conservative Baptist Church so I suspect I’m the only one who accepts evolution, along with my family, although they do accept me
I am grateful to interact with and learn from folks here.
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‘Refuted’ is one form of ‘addressed’.
It would help.
Not at all. There are known shortfalls with ToE. Here’s a list of some.
Irreducible complexity is not one of them.
Precisely what I said.
You do not address it, you refute or dismiss it (without showing that you actually understand it.)
(Calling refuting addressing is linguistical smart @ss)
Richard