You know so much about what other people think? I think that neither they nor you would be capable of dividing invertebrates into families. They contain enormous diversity.
That’s why you relentlessly avoid even acknowledging the empirical testing of OoL hypotheses, falsely portraying them as mere speculation.
Your zeal in doing so leads you to support gross misrepresentations of the evidence itself.
False dichotomy. There are various ranked groups between family and order, any of which would be counted as “cracking” the “family” barrier. As it happens, there is the fine example of Kurt Wise, who thinks that most mammal “kinds” are at the level of suborders. Mind you, none of this is considered evolution; they don’t like that word. But Wise has sometimes gone so far as to suppose that whales are descended from land mammals.
You can also find creationists who think that all bacteria are a single “kind”, or all beetles, even all insects.
OK, suborders. That’s not a big stretch beyond families. As for whales, is his view common among YECs?
I don’t deny it, but who? And how many? My point was not that no such people existed, but that they were not typical of YEC.
Anyhow, as I think you know, I’m not a big fan of hyperspeed evolution to get lots of new critters, because it looks to me like an ad hoc notion just to fit the facts into the Flood timeline. Here you have a whole subculture of American Biblicist Christians who used to argue that no evolution occurred, no way, nohow, and now some of them think evolution not only happened, but happened at super speed and even beyond the species level? I can’t believe they would resort to such a desperate expedient except as a rescue operation for their timeline. So what’s the game – allow some evolution, to preserve a literal Bible, so that the Bible can oppose the rest of evolution that’s still not allowed? Sort of like getting vaccinated with a weakened form of a disease so that later on you can resist the stronger form? If I thought Christianity required such intellectual gymnastics to keep it alive, I’d give it up tomorrow.
But orders are a big stretch? It isn’t clear how you can draw these lines. Of course, most YECs don’t think much about what “kinds” are.
Who’s typical? What are your exemplars and how have you chosen them?
Well, they don’t call it evolution; it’s the evolution that dare not speak its name. And most creationists don’t spend any time thinking about what is and is not a “kind”.
@Eddie, I’m pretty sure you haven’t a clue…
@Eddie, since you don’t have an inkling the road map, state of the field, or what is actually being done, you have no basis for making this statement.
Explain what “modern synthetic chemistry” has to do with this?
…
Well, thinking about things, based on what we know about “modern synthetic chemistry”, I would say that this knowledge argues against “the action of an intelligent mind”, not against a natural source of the origin of life.
Lessee if I have @Eddie’s reasoning correct - intelligent minds conducting modern synthetic chemistry cannot create E. coli at a single sitting, therefore intelligence was involved? That’s some kinda “Arts” reasoning there, I guess.
The true fact of the matter is - an up-to-date account of Origin of Life research would excite the engaged teacher and inquisitive student, would put a lot of biochemistry in a fascinating and logical new light, and would put to shame deniers like @Eddie (and his sources).
Yes, I agree with that. The ID people just don’t understand this obvious point – perhaps because they don’t want to understand it.
Ask James Tour, who is a synthetic chemist – and supposedly short-listed for a Nobel Prize a few years back. He has a few articles and videos out regarding the origin of life.
No, the point is that if modern synthetic chemists can’t create the crucial building blocks of life in a controlled environment where they call all the shots, it’s very unlikely that chance could do so.
Well, if James Tour has an Arts Ph.D., I guess so, because it’s his reasoning.
I wasn’t speaking for myself. I was using the reasoning YECs have traditionally used. They for a long time said that maybe, just maybe, “microevolution” (as they use the word) can produce new species or even new genera, but not new families; families had to be specially created ex nihilo, so to speak. So if they are now saying that maybe it can produce new suborders, but not new orders, they’ve just extended the limits of microevolution by one notch.
I thought I was representing the majority view of YECs; I wasn’t purporting to represent any individuals. If I’m not representing the majority view, I’m willing to adjust my conception of YEC, but I would need some names. So far you have given me one name, Kurt Wise, and even there, you say he only “sometimes” has allowed that whales might have come from land mammals. So it’s not clear to me how big a trend this is. But if it is a big one, I’ll revise my idea of YEC.
If some of them do, they would say it was “only microevolution, not macroevolution” (in their meaning of those terms).
That appears to be the case for OECs, at least for Ross’s group, since it seems impossible to get any of the leaders to discuss it, publicly or privately. But maybe they do think about it, and do not communicate their thoughts to outsiders, for whatever reason. I think the YECs have more often talked about “kinds” and how they relate to traditional Linnaean categories. From what you said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kurt Wise and talked about this, and I’m certain I’ve read some things by Todd Wood about “baraminology.”
Two notches, technically: superfamily, suborder.
What’s your evidence for this?
So I need names, but you don’t?
Granted.
Just a general impression, from reading YEC stuff off and on for about 50 years now. I have not done any formal count. But you should ask the same question of Mercer, who said
What’s his evidence for “many”? He didn’t present any more evidence for his claim than I did.
I’d say none of us, including Mercer, have been providing many names; apparently we’re all relying on general impressions based on either past or present YEC writing. So this discussion doesn’t rise above anecdotal, and it doesn’t even give any specific anecdotes, unless we count your remark about Wise on whales. It’s because of this that I’ve stressed that I’m willing to change my general impression if anyone here has some hard numbers about how many YECs believe in hyperaccelerated evolution, or about how many believe that the “family” barrier can be cracked by purely natural causes. I’m therefore not saying you’re wrong; I just would like some indication of where I can get the most up-to-date information on this. You sounded, from your remark about Wise, as if you had been reading some recent stuff, so I was asking you to share your information. Don’t read my question as if it was an act of gauntlet-throwing, because it wasn’t intended that way.
So you don’t trust me because I won’t go out if my way to falsely attack your opponents.
Hyper-accelerated evolution is being pushed by Ark Encounter, so it is certainly a significant force in modern Young Earth Creationism .
To the best of my knowledge the equation of “kind” with “family” is proposed only as a rule of thumb, not a hard-and-fast rule. If any creationists propose a barrier at the level of any recognised taxonomic grouping other than species I am not aware of it.
Thanks for the reference. It led me to creation.com and videos and webpages on speciation and kinds.
I see that on creation.com they prefer to use the term “speciation” rather than “microevolution” (which I used to see in previous generations of YECs). That is, they do not regard the diversification of animals after the Flood as “evolution,” and therefore don’t see themselves as compromising with falsehood. (Not all creationists agree this; their website indicates a rancorous disagreement with Kenneth Keathley, who charged them with compromising on “evolution.”)
So yes, the YECs today (at least, at creation.com, which seems connected with the Ark Encounter) speak about what people here would call rapid “evolution” but which they prefer to call something else.
They do say, however, that however rapid the diversification, it is all from original created “kinds.” When asked what “kinds” correspond to, they say that there is no direct equivalence with our current classification system, but they do seem to think that new species and genera have come into existence, and so in many cases, the created “kind” would have been approximately at the level of “family”, but it’s not a rigid equality. Perhaps some of the “kinds” were broader than that, some narrower. It’s clear from their discussion, however, with its examples of cat kind and (at the broadest) the whale kind, that they don’t envision the “kinds” as broad enough to match our “classes”. It seems to be a floating boundary, somewhere between genera and order.
So they envision very rapid evolution — oops, speciation — after the animals left the Ark, such that tens of thousands of species arose from the pairs on the Ark. And this process had to happen within 5200 years (taking the earliest date they give for emerging from the Ark) or within about 4500 years (taking the latest date they give). So in round numbers, that’s only 5,000 years to generate all our modern species, most of our modern genera, and some of our modern families (in lines where the created kinds were roughly on the level of orders). I leave it to the geneticists here to calculate the plausibility of such rapid diversity, if only natural causes known today were at work.
It’s worth remarking, however, that we have a fair number of paintings, statues, mosaics, etc. of animals (cats, dogs, livestock, some wild animals) from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc., sometimes fairly detailed images, and so can get an idea of the diversity of animals that existed from 1,000-3,000 B.C. I haven’t studied this artwork, but if it shows that already by classical Egyptian, Babylonian, Akkadian, etc. times there was animal diversity comparable to ours today, that leaves a smaller window for hyper-rapid evolution, maybe only 1,500 years or so.
So the question I would put to these people is: are they talking about purely natural diversification, or are they talking about miraculously assisted diversification, i.e., “guided” speciation? If (for the sake of argument) our best science rules out purely natural diversification (on the ground that 5,000 years is too short a time), then they must be insisting on miraculous assistance. But of course the Bible does not mention any such assistance, so that would be departing from rigid literalism. What would justify such a departure?
It seems that the only thing that could justify it would be the axiom that the Bible can never teach anything false, and so, if the only way the Bible would not be false is if God speeded up speciation miraculously, such miraculous intervention, though never mentioned in the Bible, would have to be inferred. But as soon as one starts invoking “the Bible can’t be false” to deal with a scientific difficulty (not enough time for speciation), one’s “scientific creationism” is clearly not limiting itself to what can be proved by science alone, without reference to the Bible.
That’s nice. But I’m talking about the scientific theory of evolution. And, more specifically, whether Intelligent Design represents a viable and legitimate scientific alternative to that theory.
My position, as you should recall, is that the term “creationism” has been and is correctly used, both in casual conversation and in the academic literature, to denote a pseudoscientific belief that seeks to deny the theory of evolution in an attempt to scientifically legitimize religious doctrinal beliefs regarding human origins.
I’ve found the recent trial of Alex Jones instructive in understanding the mindset of the ID Creationist propagandists. I don’t think making coherent arguments is even their purpose anymore (assuming it ever was). They just need to keep saying things that are convincing to the likes of @Eddie, @colewd, @lee_merrill, @Marty, the other ID Creationist sympathizers on this board. The movement keeps moving, the cash keeps flowing in, and that is the end of it.
Hoo boy.
Sez Eddie who was in school for ten years and so is very good at logic and thinking and stuff like that.
Here’s a lesson I guess you skipped out on during that decade of arts seminars: “Have not yet created” does not mean the same thing as “cannot create.” Learning is for life, Eddie!
They start with the conclusion that they want. And if the evidence doesn’t support that conclusion, they reject the evidence. Or at least that’s the way it seems.
Often the conclusion has been so strongly pressed by their social support group, that they cannot contemplate questioning it.
@Eddie, you may think that compounds such as citrate, malate, and succinate are not building blocks for life, and maybe Tour does as well. No matter - when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
The field is much, much richer, more vibrant than Tour and the ID community will let on. I think it would be great for students - even high schoolers - to learn what is really the state of the field. Not Tour’s misrepresentations, not the DI’s ignorance-embracing party line.
It is. However, you have endorsed many ad hoc notions in your attempts to defend IDcreationism, so I’m seeing that as a major inconsistency.
Exactly.
So you now have friends at the Karolinska? And why, if he was shortlisted a few years back, did he fall off this supposed shortlist?
Art was asking YOU, since YOU brought it up. His articles and videos grossly misrepresent the state of OoL research, as you are doing here.
It’s just astounding that right after arguing that the DI doesn’t want IDcreationism taught in public schools, in his next breath Eddie advocates for teaching a completely phony creationist straw man of OoL research.
There’s no deception, self or otherwise, going on there, no sirree…
And of course, no one on the materialist-atheist side has ever done such a thing. P. Z. Myers, Jerry Coyne, Barbara Forrest, Eugenie Scott, etc. all came into these debates as paragons of open-minded objectivity.
I’m willing to learn. Are you saying that these compounds have been produced in tightly controlled conditions, or have been produced in “hands-off” settings allegedly duplicating the conditions on a primitive earth? And what about nucleic acids and proteins?
This would be a good idea for a topic of its own. If one of the chemists or biochemists here would start at topic called something like: “Which complex molecules crucial to life have been produced without investigator manipulation in hypothetical primitive earth conditions?” that could lead to a useful discussion. But this thread is already a many-headed hydra which should be terminated, so let’s not start that discussion here.
I don’t believe you.
He’s not saying anything of the sort. You are engaging in deception when you put words in other people’s mouths.
Maybe you should try to understand Art’s answer to your first question before assuming you’re on to something.
As a biochemist, I don’t think so at all.
A far more interesting discussion would be for you to present your review of Nick Lane’s book.
Meanwhile:
For someone who denies being a creationist, “Eddie” sure has a way of acting like one:
- The Law of Reproducible Results : Anything found in nature was Designed, unless it can be reproduced in the lab. Corollary: Anything intentionally done in a lab is not natural; it’s a purposeful result. Therefore, all lab results are evidence of Intelligent Design.
Hi Neil
What do you think evolutionary theory explains? What do think are limitations to what it explains?