Is Genesis History response

I’ve watched this documentary a few times, and I love it. Your response leaves me scratching my head. It is not my intent to be argumentative or combative, but I would like to point out some issues I have with the BioLogos Forum response to this documentary.
“It would take a book to flesh out all the false assertions…” reminds of someone saying “no offense” right before they say something offensive - as if that gives them a free pass. While I agree that it might take a significant amount of verbiage to rebut the movie, you don’t even come close. Not even considering the “so we’ll confine this review to a few illustrative examples” qualifier.
The article mentions ‘young earth’ Christian scientists as a tiny minority. A. Why does the number of them have any bearing on their interpretation of the data? B. Especially considering that non-atheist scientists themselves are a minority. Truth is not a democratic response and this notion in the article is flawed logic. The critique is given that “Dr. Tackett does not consult any Christian scientists who could point out errors in the arguments of his exclusively young-earth counselors”. If he had included them, should he also have included scientists who could point out those scientists errors? What about scientists to rebut those scientists? NEWS FLASH: ALL scientists get it wrong more often than they get it right! I deliberately used the absolute “all” in that statement, but I do not currently have supporting data. I consider it intuitive.
“The truth of an earth of recent creation and violent history need to be propped up on a tangled web of misrepresentations, half-truths, and concealed data”. This cannot be said for the theory of Evolution? I believe this statement MORE appropriately references Evolutionary theory.
The article tries to discredit this film because it does not show ‘alternative theory’. This is just ridiculous. Adjectives like ‘highly respected church fathers’ is a literary game - some refer to this as the power of suggestion. Putting the HRCF tag on dissenters is a common ploy to support a weak argument with ‘group think’. If CS Lewis were to jump off of a cliff…?
Your statement that there is “it doesn’t take much digging to discover that evidence of erosion between layers in the Grand Canyon is abundant” is either false, misleading or you’re using a non-standard definition of the word ‘abundant’. I’ve been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon numerous times. I’ve traversed it’s length in a boat. The “perfectly flat” layers are “abundant”. The word you should use “anomaly” in your statement not abundant. As far as the layers of rock below the Great Unconformity - one of the author’s attempts at a “GOTCHA” - the film never suggests how the GU got there, and what is under it. In fact, one could hardly draw the conclusion the film maker is suggesting below the GU is asthenosphere. Could these referenced formations been formed when God created the earth? The Bible DOES suggest the waters gathered together so that dry land appeared. That’s just a speculation, but a completely feasible explanation your article chooses to omit. They do say in the film ‘there are still questions to be answered’. (That’s a trait of a good scientist, IMO.)
“And perhaps worst of all… …they conveniently leave out the fact that in a vertical mile of catastrophically deposited sediments, there is not a single fossilized bird, mammal, dinosaur, flowering plant, or even a grain of flowering plant pollen. This looks remarkably like evidence of rising and falling oceans at a time when birds, mammals, dinosaurs, and flowering plants did not yet exist.” This is a complete assumption of something you cannot possibly know as a fact. I’m not saying that these fossils DO exist, but you cannot say that they don’t. Given the comparatively minute area of fossil digs relative to the entire surface of the planet, it is possible they have not yet been discovered.
“Similar examples and explanations can be made about each section of the film.” Yet, you fail to present ANY of them. This is a much bigger reach than what you are accusing of Dr. Tackett. The article reprise’s the "lack of counter-thought’ as “evidence” the movie’s claims are false - a ridiculous suggestion. Given some of the accusations this article claims to make, I’m wondering if it was penned by someone who is completely unwilling to (as the article challenges the film) consider alternative ideas. That, or a 3rd grader who’s best response is “I know you are, but what am I?” [PeeWee Herman joke :wink: ]
I found the film enlightening and faith building. The film actually increased my love for God and humbled by his Majesty. Personally, I don’t believe in evolution. Not even the notion that God made the Big Bang happen, and guided it to where we are today. The evidence against evolution by far outweighs the ideas presented in this film. I am sure you’ve heard this anology: evolution is like taking apart a Rolex, removing a few springs, putting the remaining parts in a box and shaking it until it remakes the missing parts, reassembles itself and sets itself to the current date and time. Sorry, but not once is 4.5 billion years is that ever going to happen. Fun question: why did the apple tree decide to become an orange?

PS. All of this ‘common DNA’ is more hoo-hah… our DNA is 98% chimpanzee…sounds like a ‘virtual match’ until you say it like this: there are 64 million differences between human and (our “CLOSEST relative”) the chimpanzee. 64 mil is a LOT.

Y’all have a great day and I hope that you don’t take my little post in the wrong light. I love you, I really do. But I also love some people who are Philadelphia Eagles fans! :smiley: Go Cowboys!

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Welcome to the forum! You make some valid points, and I will probably respond in more detail when I have time, but could you indicate what article you are responding to? It is not entirely clear in your post, though I think It may refer to one of the main articles on the site made some time ago. I will try to see what matches up with your comments.

Correction. The rhetoric against evolution which you choose to believe outweighs…

There is no objective evidence against evolution. The demonstrable evidence which science looks at is overwhelming in the support of evolution.

I think this is the article discussed:

If not, let me know.

I’m a math guy…ever see the odds for winning the lottery? It’s approximately 1 in 300,000,000.

Have you ever seen the probability for all of the amino acids to properly sequence to create just 1 of 1000’s on proteins needed to create a single cell? It’s 1 in10^26… I’m also a concept of scale guy, so I’m going to write that out:

1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

If these amino acids magically started trying to sequence themselves…given the evolutionary estimate of the Earth being roughly 4.5 billion years old…they’d have to try to sequence almost 4 million times per second, every second of every hour of every day for 4.5 billion years… and you’d only have ONE protein…

TRANSLATION: statistically impossible…in fact, most mathematicians agree that less than 1/4 of that figure is “impossible”…

I can go on and on and on and on…

Soooo…did “science” (funny how people use that word like it’s a person) discover Precambrian fossils yesterday and it hasn’t hit the news?

Or…maybe as the film Is Genesis History highlights, where is the transitional fossil record? There should literally be millions of transitional fossils…and they’ve “gone missing”…

Or why are hybrids sterile?

You’re no astronomer. You’re looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Evolution doesn’t work backwards.

Example of speciation. When populations drift far enough apart genetically then the breeding between fails to produce fully viable results (which includes reproductive viability).

Me too. Do your studies of math include probability?

Buy a lottery ticket every day and the probability of winning in a year drops to approximately 1 in 1,000,000. In a thousand years that drops to approximately 1 in 1,000. But evolution occurs over millions of years. Do the math… since you claim the capability.

I see this as only a small example of the unreasonable nature of your argument, which is still only rhetoric and not evidence which can be call objective. Besides that is a question of abiogenesis not evolution. But I think abiogenesis is also correct and the only evidence we can ever expect for that is simply by discovering a process by which it could have happened.

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First, you’re demonstrating a complete lack of understanding how incredibly large 10^26 is. 4 million chances a second for 4.5 billion years…You seem to suggest that 1:1,000,000 has probability. That’s ridiculous… you should learn to acknowledge defeat. Sorry man, NEVER going to happen. Why: in the next point.
Judging by your reply, you need to retake Probability. You’re response draws an incorrect conclusion. No matter how many tickets you buy, the odds remain exactly the same for every lottery drawing individually. To explain: the urban legend test question: flip a coin 9 times consecutively and it comes up heads all 9 times. What are the odds of it being heads on the 10th flip? 50/50. It will always be 50/50. Each flip is its own incident. The previous flips are irrelevant to this flip, drawing or sequence. The same goes for amino sequencing. Each sequence has 1:10^26 chance of being correct. Additionally, what is the force acting on these amino acids causing their attempts to sequence into a protein? What’s controlling the process of these acids so they don’t keep attaching in the wrong sequence infinitely? I guess you missed the part where this single lucky protein would only be one of thousands needed to create a cell. Calculate the probability of those other proteins also forming in time to merge and create a cell before its damaged or destroyed - we’ll know you’re trying to pick the exact piece of space dust in multiple galaxies…you feeling lucky?

Let’s say you get lucky beyond the concept of the human mind to conceive. You STILL don’t have life. It takes life to make life. Unless you believe Mary Shelly wrote scientific journals, just having all of the ingredients “in the bowl” does not give them animation - life. Or like most of the rest of evolutional theory, this lifeless matter decided it just wanted to believe alive one day and viola!

Like I said, I can go on and on…

I actually do know my way spend a telescope. Never indicated evolution goes backward. But since mutations have a much higher incidence of deleting, not adding, over billions of years, you’d have de-evolution. You literally have to hit a grand slam EVERY at bat, regardless of how many runners are on base. I don’t know how well you know baseball, but you gotta have at least 3… so mathematically speaking, sooner or later you come up short and the process stops

I think the primary thing is that no one proposes that proteins self assemble out of amino acid soup, so those are totally irrelevant numbers and a fictional scenerio. And not related to evolution as pointed out.

As the species drift far enough from each other? So what magic wand makes that happen??? You do know what happens when you have repeated breeding within the same gene pool right? You get the bad kind of mutation…and often sterile offspring. :joy:

It is called the Sharpshooter fallacy, otherwise known as “painting the bulls eye around the arrow”. I can use the same fallacy to make the claim that you shouldn’t be able to shuffle a deck of cards and lay all the cards face up. Why? The chances of getting that exact order of cards after laying them face up is 1 in 52!, or 1 in 8x10^67. That order of cards is so improbable that it shouldn’t happen, and yet it did. People do the same thing when they try to calculate the odds of evolution producing a specific protein with a specific sequence, calling it the “proper sequence”.

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I wonder if you find the theological approaches which accept old earth origins to be heretical? A video of a talk between Todd Wood and Darrel Falk this past February seems to suggest that Todd and his camp need not be regarded as fools while Darrel and his lot need not be viewed as heretics. Have you seen or heard it?

How else do you suggest this first simple living cell? What do you think is the probability of a single cell - that magically just came to life - figures out “whoa! Hey! I’m about to die…I better start dividing myself!” Nah man, that cell dies. Game Over.

Mutations.

Within the same gene pool is fine. All humans are in the same gene pool. Problems arise when close relatives have offspring because close relatives have a much higher chance of carrying the same rare deleterious recessive mutations.

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Of course, you are talking about abiogenesis, rather than evolution, a separate subject. And there is a big unknown there. Science doesn’t claim to know all the answers.

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Since I didn’t say a single thing about this absurd number of yours so your accusation is an outright lie. But then what else can we expect of someone who spouts an endless strings of outright lies.

The problem with these types of probability arguments is that the premises of them are absurd. The cell is not the product of rolling a 10^26 sided die but the product of a pre-biotic evolutionary process. The evolutionary algorithm has been conclusively demonstrated to be quite capable of producing highly tuned solutions to complex problems beyond the capabilities of any human engineer. That is the whole problem with this misguided search for God in ID. There is nothing divine about ID when this is easily produced by simple mechanical process and computer algorithms. It is like looking for God in a petri-dish where the only “god” you are going to find has no more divinity than a bacterium.

I have no interest whatsoever in your bacterium watchmaker machine god, let alone the sadistic inept designer you want to attribute all the illnesses and design flaws of human biology to. I expect more from a God I am willing to believe in and I find that God in the Bible and in the theory of evolution.

Nor do I have any interest in your strawman for the random assembly of a cell which has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution let alone abiogenesis. No matter how much you would prefer science not to investigate the origin of life and the species it is going to continue doing so and thus you can not only keep your imagined religious authority to dictate empty answers to such questions. But you can look forward to more of science demonstrating the absurdity of the so-called answers you like to feed people.

It is by a number of means which species have evolved to introduce variation into their genome like sexual reproduction. This genetic drift is demonstrable and measurable.

If the gene pool is too small then it tends bring out destructive recessive genes. But this is why the interpretation of Biblical stories as about humanity starting with a single couple or an 8 person family (Noah’s) is not very believable. And thus it is more sensible to take seriously the mention in the Bible of other people in the world and the description of the Earth as a table means it is only a small section of the planet (i.e. the flood was only a local flood).

We don’t need to know where the first cell came from in order to determine that all vertebrates share a common ancestor.

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