Evolution? How?

Thanks ebrown for pointing out the same questions I have. The argument certainly relies on evolution to prove the story of Noah correct. And evolution is what we are not supposed to believe in.

Umm ok God made it. Are you happy? I don't remember the big bang theory saying "no god exists."



Yup. But just as a ponderment, what's your point.



I'm sure Google (which he used Yahoo btw) didn't convince him. He merely was using it to find a suitable link. That's what we use search engines for. I shudder at the thought of someone simply basing an idea off how many hits are on Google lol.



I've actualyl read msot of the bible throughout my religious phase. The one cool part was the book of Revelations. If you want contradictions here's a site about a person who supported the bible and got shot down repeatedly.
http://www.truthorfables.com/EGW_Contradicts.htm
and here
http://home.freeuk.net/jesusmyth/page5.htm
and a very complete one
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.shtml

I clicked your link and the chameleon and noticed something:


It says there were 2 created kinds of chameleons and from them came the other 90 or so species
Does not this imply MACRO-evolution (evolution at or above the species level) which is fervently DENIED by creationists?
I'm probably "interpreting" this wrong so please clear this up for me.
Beyond that I think the link is saying chameleons couldn't evolve. Maybe science can't currently explain it but that's why we have science no? To explain the unexplained. I did find this though:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3410001&dopt=Abstract



Yeah I'd like to kick the idiots who made those mistakes. Did you ever see the glee creationists got when they seemingly thought they found a specimen of a dinosaur hunting a hominid? Well, it was hoax. Both sides have the "jump-to-conclusions" people.



Heres a man with his wits. I expect you to question everything I write and refute as I have tried to do with you.

I love the math on the ark. He took the outside measurements and figures the interior capacity based on that.

Great building technique if Noah made it that large with 3 floors but didn't use any supports or outer walls at all. Structure takes up space in all construction I have ever seen.

And as a boat he must have built it square then too based on the math. A perfectly square boat with no structure to hold it together. The miracle isn't that all those animals fit on it. The miracle is if the thing could even float based the assumptions made in that analysis.

Some other simple boat building things the author forgot about. A boat that large would require ballast which would take up some of the space.

WHOO BOY did we ever open a can of worms. Any way I'll be gone for a few days but concerning the animals on the ark... take dogs for example. O.K. say there were only 2 dogs. They get off the ark and have puppies. The puppies grow and have more puppies. They all look similar. Some have dominant genes for long hair others short hair. They start to travel their seperate ways. Some go to colder climates others to warmer climates. The short hair dogs in the cold can't survive and over time you get a canine with long hair that tolerates cold like wolves. Others travel south (to enjoy Cabo ) but the long hair dogs can't handle the heat and eventually die off; you get something like the dingo. Now the Eskimos see the advantages of the wolves and pick out the ones with the traits they think would make a dog that would fit their needs and domesticate them. This is how the many different breeds we see now have come about (generally speaking) However there is no explanation for the poodle :wink: (Just kidding, I know, poodles were bred for hunting)
Concerning the size and shape of Noah's ark see this link. I think it makes it a little more understandable. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i1/ark.asp
As far as ballast maybe all the stuff Noah took on the ark acted as ballast. Or maybe he just used rocks?

El-Diablo, thanks for the food for thought. I know you will hold firm to what you believe and I will surely hold firm to what I believe. It is good to look at these issues and discuss them. Like I said last post, I'll be gone for a few days so I wont be reading this post for a while.

Oh God help me. Don't tell me I've stumbled across a thread where people believe in Noah's Ark. Please tell me you are just discussing it in allegorical terms...that you know its really just myth and legend.

But I have a horrible sinking (no pun intended) feeling that you dont...

okbye

Well I like to believe that many of the stories in the bible had some basis in fact.

(That could surprise a few folks)

Sorry Steve yes some of us do believe in the ark, and if you don't well I don't know if God can help you. BTW if you don't belive in this stuff why do you ask God to help you, or is that just an allegorical term :wink:

I am constantly surprised that people can take a set of stories in a 2000 year-old book and hold them up as evidence contrary to that which has been rigorous proven & tested in modern times.

Do Christians believe in life on other planets? If not, why not? And if so, should aliens look like us because they must have been made in God's image as well?

Do Christians believe that mountains were made by God, or that they were created over millions of years by volcanic and/or tectonic actions and events?

Why are you so certain that the Bible is right and the Koran (sp) is not?

Brace yourself Grand Duke, there be quite a few Paladins roaming these here woods.

Thanks for the warning, Eorl... Flame-proof jackets at the ready!

I'm not having a go at Christians, just trying to get a handle on where all this blind faith in a very old book of stories comes from.

"Sorry Steve yes some of us do believe in the ark, and if you don't well I don't know if God can help you. BTW if you don't belive in this stuff why do you ask God to help you, or is that just an allegorical term."

Glad you picked up on that apparant contradiction Jack of AT.

Eorl will explain, if he feels like it.

CI- Ive been busy at "ID" prep meetings so Ive missed the last few days.
Youre post on the dodo was excellent, Im gonna clip and save.

Now that were back a few centuries arguing Noahs Ark, I must remind us that there are over 55 million separate species and over 1 billion susbspecies and varieties. Somebody should do the math regarding a distrbution of body masses (since most of the species are insects and another 10 million are fish , so we will assume that Noah didnt worry about fish)

This is why the Supreme Court ruled that Creation "science: shouldnt be taught in school sciences courses, because its not derived from the basis of the scientifi c method or observation or evidence.


Jack of trades- Talking about a species like the platypus, and using it to assume Creation is kind of irrational.
The scientific fossil evidence has shown that platypii developed during the Triassic while all the Continents were conjoined into Gondwanaland. Fossil platypii (Steropodon) were found in proto OZ and in what is now Patagonia. After the southern continents split in the Jurassic, all the remaining fossil platypii were limited to Australia in the lightning ridge faunal ASSEMBLAGE.
The type of evolution that the platypus displays is called "mosaic" wherein various traits from another class are retained on later forms. Like teeth on bird fossils, legs on fish, beaks on mammals (Multituburcukate mammals also had some species with soft beaks like platypii)

Evolutionary analyses and Uniformitarian geology can provide very compelling evidence for most all organism forms and lines of descent. All the Creationists can do is stare and wonder.
Whether you realize it or not, the issue of whether evolution exists has already been adjuticated by the US Supreme court with only Justices Scalia and Rhenquist voting against the Aguillard appeal.
The issue now is "Intelligent Design", and , in most cases the Intelligent Design scientists agree that evolution is a provable phenom with plenty of ecidence to support it. Their argument is that evolution needs to be underpinned with a "grand designer" mode of the origin of life . Thats what its about today.
Were way past this Noahs Ark stuff. If you wish to believe that a great pumpkin came down and gave life to all the little boys and girls, knock yourself out, just please, try to keep up with the times.
I agree that there remain a few classical Creationists who try to generate revenue by opening all these Creation Science Institutes> However, like the dodo, these anachronistic throwbacks are not even given much respect by their modern Intelligent Design colleagues. Creation "SCience" is, arguably, as big an embarrassment to them as the "cold fusion" dudes were to Physics.

You are, of course, able to believe whatever you wish, but you have to be able to sustain the historical facts that pertain to your beliefs. Its gonna be a hard couple of years for Creationism as the Intelligent Design School attempts to divorce itself from what you espouse, so that any further USSC appeal will even be heard without bogging down in retrying Edwards v Aguillard.

You Creationists have gotta be concerned that youll soon be irrelevant like "flat earthists and Terracentrists"

Jack,

OK.. lets start with your model of the ark. Notice that it has slanted sides. the bottom is not as large as the top. That means the volume can NOT be what was assumed by multiplying the outside dimensions. Notice also that the sides have structure to them. A floor that is 75 ft by 459 ft would require substantial beams and supports. 3 floors would require even more support to hold the upper 2 floors. We are talking floors that would have to be able to support an elephant. a wooly mammoth or the heaviest of dinasours. (Your source claimed dinasours.)
Rocks or earth would have been the most likely ballast and it would have been required. The boat wouldn't have had enough weight even filled with animals and feed to be stable. The feed would have been mostly grasses not grains. Grasses don't have much weight by volume. (There were no baling machines to compact the grasses.)
The last time I checked rocks have volume. So the "volume" capable of holding animals is even further reduced.
I haven't done the math but based on just these simple facts the volume would have been probably 60-70% of what your source claimed.

Then we get into your argument of "natural selection" after the animals leave the ark. That is precisly what VOL is claiming can NOT happen.

Cold fusion doesn't exist?
That's it. I am turning off my perpetual motion machine and hooking up my electrical connections to a glass of water just prove you wrong.

Come on guys. The whole deal with Noah and the flood assumes an omnipitent being which is making everything possible. So trying to break down the story with mass and size calculation is just a waste of time, isn't it? Why even try? Let's face it, an omnipotent being can do *anything*.

Argments that start with an assumption of omnipotence (magic), like all religious arguments, are unassailable with physics.

Yeh but theyre fun to screw around with. Some guy who was a Creation wildcatter was trying to sell his magic at an exploration conference once . I thik his Creation name was something like "Hayseed Hastings" Im not certain on the hastings but he went by Hayseed. (it was an attempt at ridiculing all the academics and oil property professionals in the audience)

Hayseed went along with an abiogenic ouil theory that was completely in accord with continental drift but a young earth. After he was done talking a guy in the audience got up and said that "Ive computed your tectonic plate velocities in the less than 10000 year earth, and it came out to like 0.1 mi/hr for opening ocean basins and then, with that seed, wed have something like 80 trillion tons of sediment per day oozing off the continents."

His point was that wed probably notice all that movement if we were siting on the beach.

Never underestimate the power of a good laugh

farmerman, The continental shift of from the origianl Gondwanaland also included, according to some of my readings, not only Australia and South America, but South Africa and India. The same proof relies on fauna and flora findings in all these locations which could not have drifted either way by wind.

Thats right ci, and then about the Jurassic, South America,separated from Gondwana, then Africa and India went their way, and Australia and Antarctica went away , then in the Cretaceous , India separated from Africa and took aim on Asias belly and then Australia and Antarctica separated thats why, when we look at species we have to look at when various land masses were together and when did they separate.
When I was doing grad work in the 70s, this was all new and full of conjecture. I was in the middle of listening to and discussing with all the minds that, a few years earlier , would have been called "nuts".Today, besides being an interesting academic pursuit, its a useful tool to mining coastal reserves and mountain belt provinces and ancient deltas

Im only sorry that, theres not a really good text that summarizes the movement of plates through time and the resultant geology and paleo life that occured. Its a massive undertaking and I hopw somebody is doing it. The information is scattered all over hells half acre and there are still conflicting interpretations on the exact interpretations , but, thats how it works.Im teaching an economic minerals course and I wanted to give the kids a new perspective in relating mining belts to plate tectonics . I found, after a lot of lookling in the textbook categories , that Im going to have to publish a list of publication articles and web sites from USGS

There is a Shockwave animation of the Gondwana breakup that presents it pretty well for the layman.

Gondwana Animation