I completely understand why an atheist activist and devoted evolutionist like Dr. Donald Prothero needs to sweep the inconvenient truth of the Cambrian explosion under the carpet.
What specific scientific conclusion in Dr. Prothero’s comments do you claim is false, and why?
The truth and reality is that Jesus created a living human being from inanimate matter in an instant, when he raised Lazarus from the dead (John 14).
That being so, we can assume that the account in Genesis 2:7 of God creating Adam from inanimate matter in an instant was a literal event. The same miracle occured when Jesus was resurrected and it will occur when you yourself are resurrected - God will raise you to life from inanimate matter in an instant.
It seems absurd to me that God would bother using a painfully slow and messy process like evolution to bring a human being into existence when the Scriptures demonstrate that he can perform such a feat in a miraculous instant.
In his textbook, Bringing Fossils to Life (Columbia University Press, 2013), Prothero unashamedly promotes common ancestry using Haeckel’s long-discredited embryo drawings, stating that human embryos possess “gill arches”.
Is it wise to trust the opinions of a charlatan?
Ah, yes, a deflecting talking-point directly from the ID website.
To stay on topic, you were discussing the Cambrian, and I was asking specifically what about Prothero’s comments about the Cambrian you thought were lies, and why.
When it comes to who I would trust, it would be the opinion of someone who has a Ph.D. and years of experience studying the topic in question. So, W.R.T. questions about the Cambrian, I’d trust Prothero with a degree and training and years of fieldwork in paleontology over Meyers who has no degree or direct experience in that field.
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You have to separate your science from your theology, otherwise you aren’t doing science and you’re doing bad theology. None of my Christian university science professors had any issues separating their science from their theology, even the biology professor who started off each new week with a verse from one of the Psalms.
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That’s not a persuasive argument. Meyers points out in his book that his opinions expressed therein were formed after extensive consultation with recognized experts in the relevant fields of science. Prothero himself would also reply on the opinons of others to a certain extent … as all scientists do.
So it boils down to trusting either an expert who"s been exposed as a charlatan, or trusting experts who haven’t been exposed as charalatans (ie, the scientists Meyers consulted). I think you might have made an unwise choice and put your money on the wrong horse.
So which specific claim about the Cambrian in Prothero’s blog post above do you think is scientifically incorrect and why? Or are vague ad hominum attacks all there are?
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You’re doing it again, making a straw man out of Lazarus, and one more time, that is still dishonest. As a Christian, yes, I believe Jesus raised Lazarus. But that has nothing to do with how God normally works in his creation, using supernatural miracles rarely and conservatively. YECs and other evolution denialists enslave God to their misinterpretation, requiring him to do miracles continuously.
No, you cannot so assume. Jesus is not required to adhere to your misinterpretation of Genesis, and his performing a miracle during his earthly ministry is not required to be interchangeable with God’s creative acts where he uses the natural order that he instituted when he created the cosmos. Again you try to enslave God to your broken interpretation.
We agree. You have a problem.
Was he short of time? His use of evolution to produce such diversity is astounding.
What is truly absurd is to deny physical reality because of a misinterpretation of the Bible, the Bible which is not teaching 21st century scientific truths but eternal ones and spiritual reality.
You mean why He would use such an elegant and majestic method based on the chemistry of the universe that churns out ever more variety and beauty?
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One of my favourite “plausible explanations” offered by Darwinists is that elevated oxygen levels triggered the Cambrian explosion. This is pure fantasy masquerading as science … there is zero scientific evidence that elevated oxygen levels trigger the evolution of novel body plans and organs. Entertaining, though …
I haven’t misinterpreted the Bible … when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 14), he created a human being from inanimate matter in an instant. No billions of years of evolution needed.
Ah, ignorance is bliss…
I had two different professors who wrote textbooks for the subjects they taught. Both shared one complaint: heavy-handed editors. And one thing editors can do is to choose illustrations to go into a textbook. So my question is simple: is this information in the actual text, or is it in an illustration?
Just as an example, one illustration that one of my professors complained about was one that indicated that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is an observer effect, which isn’t even in the right city, let alone the right ballpark.
Sometimes such things get caught if the professor has a few grad students he can assign to go through the proofs before the text goes to print, but even they don’t catch anything – which is why one of those two professors said he was happy to see that the fourth edition of his text was available to us, because over the first three editions he and his grad students had managed to get most everything right.
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Here is the problem you have before you: You need to explain why God would use billions of years and a messy process like evolution to produce a human being, when Jesus demonstrated that God can create a human being from inanimate matter in an instant (John 14). Good luck with that.
That is not a problem for me at all, and only one that you are imagining. It is the way he chose to do it. Your problem is denying reality. Oh yeah, and dishonesty, raising straw men.
Dishonesty. That’s a strong word.
Quoting out of context.
Straw men are deceitful.