Lamarkism vs Darinism

[Andy7 (Andy)]

@T_aquaticus

Why would an atheist reconstruction be any different than a Christian one? I can’t see any obvious reasons why they would differ.

My apologies, I mis-read the original statement. I did not mean to imply a correspondence between charlatan artists and “atheists”. I would also like to know what would possibly be a reason why an atheist artist and a Christian artist would produce differing depictions of dinosaurs.

[Roy]

@adamjedgar

Oh that’s easy…because whether or not you are willing to accept the obvious, no one knows what a dinosaur from 60 million years ago actually looked like. We can see their bones, but everything outside of that…we generate an “artists impression” based on best guesses…an atheist will guess very differently to a Christian artist for very obvious reasons.

If it’s ‘obvious’ that they’ll guess ‘very differently’, you should be easily able to distinguish a Christian artist’s impression of a dinosaur from one produced by an atheist artist.

Here are two artists impressions of Triceratops for which you can point out the obvious:

Or you could disappear Oozlum-like again.

[T_aquaticus]

@Andy7

I would also like to know what would possibly be a reason why an atheist artist and a Christian artist would produce differing depictions of dinosaurs.

Wouldn’t we all.

To be fair, there are very valid criticisms of dinosaur reconstructions within the scientific community, and the consensus on reconstructions has changed and will change in the future because that’s how science works. However, I don’t see why these criticisms would be doled out based on one’s religious views. I also don’t understand why different reconstruction methods would pose problems for YEC.

[St.Roymond]

@Roy

Here are two artists impressions of Triceratops for which you can point out the obvious:

Just for fun I asked ChatGPT for one–

and one from Grok–

I can’t tell if one is more Christian than the other.

[St.Roymond]

@T_aquaticus

the consensus on reconstructions has changed and will change in the future because that’s how science works.

Here’s a colorful one, on the assumption that there’s no reason to think that dinosaurs were bland–

[Roy]

Ah, but did you ask for a Christian reconstruction or an atheist one?

[paleomalacologist (David Campbell)]

The textbook version of Lamarck versus Darwin, like many popular claims about the history of science, is not particularly correct. Darwin’s Descent of Man is full of inheriting acquired characteristics. The mechanism of inheriting traits was not certain in the 1800’s. But Lamarck claimed that organisms were constantly getting more advanced, with spontaneous generation continually restarting the progression. He recognized a role for natural selection in sending a particular lineage along a particular path, but his key error was the claim of having a constant “progress”. Thus, Cuvier saw the lack of change between Egyptian mummified animals and modern ones as a disproof of Lamarck.

[T_aquaticus]

@paleomalacologist

But Lamarck claimed that organisms were constantly getting more advanced, with spontaneous generation continually restarting the progression.

Spontaneous generation is another quirk of history that we often don’t appreciate. It was widely accepted by Christians of the time in contrast to abiogenesis which isn’t accepted by most modern Christians. This is on top of Darwin being much more Lamarckian than most people appreciate.

[St.Roymond]

@Roy

Ah, but did you ask for a Christian reconstruction or an atheist one?

I asked if there would be any difference. Both AIs said there wouldn’t be except perhaps a few Christians might put a human with a triceratops.

[St.Roymond]

@T_aquaticus

Spontaneous generation is another quirk of history that we often don’t appreciate. It was widely accepted by Christians of the time

And it was defended using verses from scripture!