Ben Stein Holds Court

As the Bible says, “In the beginning God…” That’s a declarative statement. It’s not theory. God was there at the beginning and it was He that created all that is. This God of all creation isn’t going to debate the fact that it was He who created the species with the pseudo-intelligensia. He knows. He was there. They only conjecture. And their conjectures are based on faulty and partial knowledge. “God is dead.” – Darwin. “Darwin is dead.” – God.

Ned, it never turns out the way you think it will, does it? You drop a pebble into a pond, and instant tsunami. Although, from a distance, it’s kind of interesting in an anthropological way.

NED…Ned! Don’t bait those folks. How about the partial collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in the past week or so. Or, what about this? I read in the April issue of a popular science magazine that I can inject a little r-EPO under the skin and increase the number of red blood cells in my system. As a result, I can increase my racing times. Now, that’s useful science! Also, aren’t the Kyoto folks meeting this week? What new ideas do they have?

Jim:
“Don’t bait those folks. How about the partial collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in the past week or so.”
Funny you mention that. On another forum a conspirancy theorist said with a straight face that that was done with high tech, space based lasers to maintain the global warming hype, which in turn is a scheme of the New World Order for some reason.
Funniest thing I’ve read this week :P

Poor ben has lost his money and his mind. He can now go away, this is a silly stroy that has no base to stand on. To have faith is one thing, to go off the deep end and think that god made all of this what we call earth, well then……. i think any educated person would have to let Ben know please retire, go away and give it up. There is no god, it just people’s fear of the unknonwn hense the bible, a big book most people couldn’t read back in the day that told stories on how to live your life, in some what peace. Man there are some crazies out there.

Please let’s move past this. Neither side is likely to convince the other. I’m a medical researcher and a creationist. Some of you either believe there is no God or that He would give us His book but allow it to be filled with errors, thus clouding His messsage. I believe God is smarter than I and that He would not give me his word shrouded in error. Ben is entitled to his view as the other side is to its. Just deal with it.

Ron Bude: excellent comment, I couldn’t agree more. By the way, I’m a professional programmer and an amateur physicist. I see no conflict between the Bible and the logic necessary to do my job: I use BOTH daily. A long time ago (when I was kid), I was told that the fundamental particles of matter were proton, neutron, and electron. This “fact” has been revised any number of times since then. Call it human weakness, but I am curious to know a few more details about creation, but it’s not a particulary burning question. I’ll wait and get the answers from The Author.

PQQAm – why don’t you contact Ben about your fire-breathing dragon theory? I’m sure he’d love to hear all about it.

PQQAm’s fire-breathing dragon theory is really not even a theory. It is merely an hypothesis, and an untestable one at that.

Andy, I think it’s more sand grain in the Pacific. But it’s all the same anyway. Religion and science don’t mix well together, kind of like oil and water. Some people can do it well, others hate the thought of it. The latter is becoming more prevalent, or at least it seems this way. Or, it’s just people wanting to push their views onto other people, forcing them to see things the same way. Like wanting ID taught in school, and evolution to not be taught, or covered up by fancy words. My point is, ID is religion based and backed up. There has been no science to back it up that has withstood scientific scrutiny, by multiple scientists. Therefore, it is still religiosly based and needs to be thought of that way. So that means it should stay out of government, and public schools and any government run event, etc. Our Constitution says so. If you want your children to learn of it, be what you are supposed to be, a parent, and teach it to your children yourselves. Stop being lazy and expecting the government to teach it for you, as they’re not allowed to teach it.

Walker, that is a well thought out response. You are not alone in your thinking. I think the same way. I just wish others were as accepting.

How about this? Life is too short to get all excited about things you don’t understand. Try to live a long, happy life, and be content. That’s all I do. I’m sure when I pass I’ll either have a greater understanding of the universe, or I’ll not have enough conscience energy to care. End of debate. Next story…

I thought Ben Stein was an economist, not a biologist? I’ll pass on “what little he knows” and take my science from actual scientists, not wannabes. Thanks!

Why does God have to just go ‘POOF’ and make man 10,000 years ago?
Can’t he be powerful enough to work his will through evolution? Isn’t that a more powerful God?–one that can sit back 10 BILLION years ago (more actually) and design things to come together at a certain point in a certain way?
It is amazing how certain fundamentalists are in their beliefs. Ultimately, their views are almost in lock-step with Muslim fundamentalists.

When I was a kid in Catholic School it was pretty much taught that we could reconcile Darwinism with the Bible as long as we understood that Genesis was written by men in a deeply metaphorical language and not to be taken literally. After all, Darwin himself was a devout Christian and believed that evolution was just the unfolding of God’s plan. Have we regressed so much that we expect a book written by men to be the literal truth and not an imperfect attempt to understand the nature of the divine? Why can we accept the Jesus used the launguage of metaphor in his parables, but not accept that the story of Genesis was also written in the methaphoric language of parable? After all, who was around to write down the story of Adam and Eve? Are we really expected to take this is as a literal, eyewitness account? Has everyone gone insane?

Mr Stien is right. As a good christian as I am sure that he is, he realises the God created everying in 6 days. People who refute this are only advocating Satanism.

petee
No…most mens interpetation of the Bible is that the world is only 10,000 years old….probably not Gods interpetation….In the beggining God created the heavens and the earth….Now the world was formless…..I’ve always been puzzeled by the word “NOW” it indicates a space or elapse of time

THIS IS A POORLY WRITTEN ARTICLE. IS THERE A CONTROVSERSY? TOO MUCH DIALOGUE WITH VERY LITTLE SUBSTANCE.

Ben Stein is my hero. Even if he is wrong about Darwinism, he is smarter than all of the posters here put together.

Hooray to Mr. Stein! I’m glad someone had the courage to publicly denounce the faulty “Theory” that is evolution. Unfortunately kids across our great nation are being taught they evolved from a rock.

Religion is little more than contempory mythology and should be taught in schools along with Greek and Roman mythology.
Atheism is enlightenment and we’ll all get along with one another once we all become enlightened.

Once upon-a-time aceient civilation created a set of laws to live by. It was written upon scolls and was followed for thounsands of years. Meant to be a guiding light of law it was quickly used by evil humans to gain wealth, power and control over the human sprit.
Then in 2050 evdence,, I’ll finish the tale later.

the evidence supports evolution however an omniscient and omnipotent God can plant what ever facts at his pleasure. Or, the devil can create particulars that point in a certain direction as a test. After all, good and evil is a free choice, but I don’t think it’s a choice or a plant. Be careful and don’t confuse God with peoples’ use of God as a crutch or excuse or tool to further advance their agenda as Aliar Gore is using “gorebal science” to advance his agenda.

From a purely scientific point of view…isn’t evolution based on assumptions? It is not observable; nor can it be reproduced now. There is no scientific evidence supporting one species evolving to another. What Darwin observed was microevolution, simply adaptation within a species…the rest is speculation. The fossil record actually shows more evidence that supports Biblical accounts. Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are not contradictory. Where chapter 1 is very thorough in laying out the detailed account of creation in order; chapter 2 is not concerned with the order, but rather focuses on the actual creation of man/woman and the things pertaining to them. For instance, chapter 2 speaks of the “cultivated” plants and the plants God caused to grow in the Garden, not plants in general.
Further, Darwin was no scientist. His only real education was Theology! His speculations on evolution came at time when he was confused and frustrated that a loving God could allow bad things to happen. So, basically, he was looking for any other way besides acknowledging a creator.
In recent years, scientists have observed newly formed rock from Mt. St Helen’s eruption. When the rock was about 20 years old, the carbon dating showed it to be millions of years old! This is one of many many real evidences that carbon dating is inaccurate and that the earth very well may be only thousands of years old. There is so much that can be discussed for days concerning this. It is just amazing!
One more thing, evolutionists would agree that civilization began about 10,000 years ago…right about the time of the creation account. Oh, and dinosaurs? Yes, there is amazing evidence that shows these creatures were here with men.
Search for truth…not merely to prove someone else wrong…and ask yourselve these questions…How do you know what you believe is true? What does it matter now and in the future?

Here’s something for all you creationists to chew on…
How does one reconcile their belief in an omnipresent, omnipotent, caring and loving God with the fact there has been such great suffering on Earth? If there is such a being, don’t you think that it would help the poor, the innocent, the starving, the suffering? Or stopped the many wars waged in its name?
I cannot believe that any being could be so cruel as to not intervene to put an end to the suffering and strife we see everyday, once and for all!

Walker: I like how your comments are thought-provoking rather than accusatory or defensive. It’s pretty clear that no one writing on this blog is going to change his or her mind about this issue, but one can hope that our writings at least encourage others to think about the issue rather than turn them off from it by bickering senselessly.

[God isn't anti-war.]
Gee, that’s a new one. What happened to ‘love thy neighbor?’

[Not surprising that you would ignore the "great commandment":
Love God with all your heart and mind.]
Nice comeback.
My mind, being quite sound, cannot believe in something that does not exist. My heart goes out to all who suffer in His name.

Humans invented the concept of a god to explain the mysteries of the environment around them. This concept is a product of evolution itself. In other words, man invented God to explain what he couldn’t have explained through science. When man began to develop a conscience, he had the ability to cognitively recognize his own existence. He knew he was going to die, and had started to ask questions about where he came from. God was the only answer available because the science needed to answer those questions would take centuries to discover.
How lucky we are to live in a time when we have finally arrived at the correct answer.

Do Christians rely on 2000 year old medical journals? 2000 year old engineering manuals? Etc. etc.
Of course not.
But Chrisitians desperately cling to their 2000 year old collection of foolish short stories.

Great, people who are convinced there is no God are going to belittle the people that do. The people who are convinced there is a God are going to try and convince the non-believers of their conviction. Waste of time on both sides. This behavior on every article/news item like this, is as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning.

There a simple way to prove which is right evolution or creation.
Let beging by thinking that global warming is real and let it continue uninterrupted. If evelotion is correct will adapt and only the fittest will survive by evolving to something that will adapt to the new enviroment. If creation is correct then god will save us and create a better world for us.
Let just wait to see who’s correct on the end.
I just looking for a idealistic solution for this issue that is the most important in my life, other that taking care of the less important ones like living day to day.

When did he become a expert of all things? The little he knows allows him access to spew his lack of insight on a matter because he used to say Buller Buller Buller?? Just because he is someone famous you put his rant on the web ABC? So did Disney put you up to this? The biggest problem we face today is from people who look at the Bible, Koran, Torah, and any other religion. And put there faith in books of fictions. We as a species have only been truely enlightened for the past 10,000 years. But of course we all know the earth was created in how days again. What a joke… Good reporting ABC….

ever played “telephone”? that’s how the bible was written, from stories passed down…..there is a 100% guarantee that there are misinterpretations, exaggerations and outright falsehoods in such a document, which, additionally, in is multiple versions……unfortunately for many who base their arguments both for and against the bible on its passages, it cannot be taken literally….

Truthseeker….There is evidence that dinosuars and man exsisted at the same time? NICE! I have never heard that one before.

Honestly, I can not even believe that this issue has been taken as seriously as it has. It’s like trying to convince a brick wall that Cinderella is only a fairy tale. It’s truly sad when personal beliefs have to be aired out like dirty laundry and gets shoved in everyone’s face. Fact belongs to everyone. Faith is your own. Leave it that way.

Evolution is fine if you do not include man!!!! Man is too far removed from any animal to have evolved from an animal. Intelligent design, you bet it is real—-look at yourself and your brain and tell me your genes were once part of a monkey—bull!

Ben Stein is always wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. He was wrong when he accused Bob Woodward of lying about the existance of “Deep Throat” and he wrong about Nixon… Ben…what Nixon did that was so terrible….he lied…he lied the the American people. You are angry at Clinton regarding his escapades but forgive Larry Craig. Ben, if there is any proof needed for people to believe in evolution you gave it to them by advocating against it. Because Ben Stine is always wrong.

Wow, look at all these postings, and look how passionate everyone is on the subject. I wonder why it’s so important for some people to declare that there is no God. Why waste your effort to denounce something you believe doesn’t exist? Consider for a moment what is motivating you to declare so vehemently that there is no God. Some of you, in your arrogance, state with utter confidence that anyone who believes that there is a God, they must be mentally inferior. Why get all worked up into such a dither over something you call nonsense, nothing more than a fairytale? I know why. It’s because you are trying to convince yourself. The stakes are high because you are betting your immortal soul. You better hope you’re right because if you aren’t you’re screwed.

“Thou Shalt Not Kill” in my version. When we let go of our egos then we can discuss Truth. Why does creation and evolution even matter? How can a person “of God” be so judgemental “all judgement is self judgement”

@archient… Exactly.

Ok, then enlighten me. What science is there in the bible? I’ve read it. I grew up studying science and continue to do so, yet have found no science in it. I must have missed it, so tell me, what it is. And yes, I did complete the process. I just chose to think with the brain God allowed evolution to give me.

Seems most of these Intelligent Design, Creationist folks here in the U.S. understand the “Creative God” as the Christian God. Nobody seems to talk about the Demi-Urge being Hindu or Buddhist or Jain or Pagan or even, God(s) forbid, Satanic.

To argue that there is no god is just as stupid as to argue there is a god. Neither can or will convince the other. Both beliefs require faith, and you better believe atheists have faith! The difference is simply one camp believes in God, the other believes in nothing.
I can no more explain how we got some thing from nothing, then I can explain how God simply always was. Both concepts are just beyond our capacity of understanding. I am not interested in arguing or proving my points.
All I have to do is look at all the proof around me I see it all in abundance. I do not need the bible to know God. Nor do I rely on the bible to prove any thing. IMHO all religions are seriously flawed because its all man made. I won’t hang my faith on any thing man made, that includes science too.
So you atheists can tear the bible apart all you want, I can even help you. It does NOT change or effect my faith in God. It may shake some believers, but not all. So don’t dismiss the possibility of a God based on man made religions lol!

the bible also says god created man then woman…a couple of paragraphs later it goes on to say that god created man, THEN ANIMAL, then woman… which is it…and the real kicker…the bible also says that the world is only 10,000 years
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Genesis was written as a history book; the first few chapters were not written in perfect chronological order, nor does it claim to be written in perfect order. The first few chapters were written like many books are today where the writer goes back and adds extra info. There isn’t 2 creation accounts but more details added in the following chapters. And yes, we believe the earth is about 10,000 years old; no one can dispute it and it’s based on the genealogies of Jesus and those Moses wrote in Genesis.
“Jesus said: what did Moses teach you?; how does it read to you?”

This website was not created. It is the result of random chance acting on matter. The computer you’re using was not created, it was the result of random chance acting on matter, as well. Ridiculous? Yes. How much more ridiculous to believe that the mind your using to read this, the hands you will use to type angry protests to this comment, and the universe in which we live came about by sheer accident. Where did the gases come from that caused the Big Bang? No answer for that one, oh brilliant ones. Without a creator, we can have no ethics, no logic, no reason, no perception of beauty, no soul. Men will go a long, long way to deny the obvious because of the moral implications of having to acknowledge a Creator. Love what Stein said about the all-knowing “intelligentsia”. They’ve been wrong a laughable number of times. Plain, common horse sense tells us that if something exists, it has a designer and creator. Only fools deny the existence of a Creator of this magnificent, strangely lush blue planet and all that’s in it. And the intelligentsia can go suck eggs.

Rock,
I almost had sympathy with your argument but you ruined it by coming down as vehemently on the side of religion as those opposed to it.
You are as surely betting on the existence of God as the Atheists are betting against.
How disappointed are you going to be if death really is the end of everything for you or any other religious person? Will the atheists be disappointed too?
How will you know you are disappointed?
You will only know if there really is a God who comes to the aid of your soul. The atheists may also receive the same attention from God. It is quite possible to lead a good and fulfilling, even spiritual life and have no knowledge of God or the Christian Bible.

Why is there something rather than nothing?
Or, if you prefer, where did all the matter that comprised the singularity at the beginning of the universe come from?
Furthermore, why did it explode?
Why does the Bible list a bunch of guys who lived for 900 years, but say nothing more about them? How could someone live for 900 years and do nothing interesting whatsoever? What on earth is the purpose behind those mentions?
Why does the Sixth Commandment say “Thou shall not kill,” yet the Old Testament describes many crimes punishable by death?
Why were some texts that became the Bible written in Hebrew, while others were written in Aramaic? Is a perfect translation from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English even possible?
If you think that cosmology and evolution prove there is no God, you’re wrong because you’ve made leaps in logic not justified; science will likely never be able to answer where the matter in the singularity came from.
If you believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God you are wrong. It was written and translated by men, and men are fallible. There are gaps in the Bible that can only be filled by interpretation. Fallible men make fallible interpretations. See, for example, the problem caused by the use of the word “kill” rather than “murder” in the Sixth Commandment. Every time a preacher says “This is the lesson we must draw from this Scripture,” he is making his own interpretation of the text. Preachers are fallible; if they were infallible they would all agree.
Make up your own mind about how you wish to view the universe and creation. You are all mortal and will learn conclusively whether there is a God soon enough.

Public relations is an odd thing. It requires an understanding of human behavior to work whether the message is factual or fabrication. Much of the heat of debate between evolution and creation is based on faulty premises. In logic, an arguement based on a faulty premise is still false, regardless of how elegant it appears. I think I’ll hang around a little longer and see if anyone comes up with a logical arguement.

It would have been great if the article mentioned even a couple of Ben’s substantiations for why evolution theory might be incorrect. Science is based on the principal of following evidence. If counter evolutionary evidence exists, it should be examined.
Ben is also quite incorrect about evolution not providing good evidence for the branching and evolution of seperate species. One of the major things Darwin studied is how similar species evolved differing characteristics in geographically seperated breeding groups.
Just take a look at dogs if you want a quick example. They all came from one species, yet over just the last several hundred years, we’ve used controlled breeding to “evolve” hundreds of breeds that are drastically different. We’ve done the same with almost all domestic animals. Nature just had a much longer time scale to work with.

If there is no God then we will never become aware of it. If there is no God then all our knowledge, dreams, desires, loves, and experiences will be gone, FOREVER. If there is no God then human existence is irrelevant so eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. That’s just too gloomy for me to live with. I prefer to believe. My faith is real even if nothing else is.
Rock : I respectfully disagree. While I don’t believe there is an afterlife that will “reward” us for following a book of rules, I do believe that while we’re here we can do a great deal of good for our fellow creatures. Life isn’t about what you can get for yourself – it’s about what you can do for others. My mother and father are both dead, but they’re definitely not gone. Their love and their deeds live long after their deaths – as do all of ours. Don’t look for a reward after you die – look to make someone else’s life happier while you’re both here. Altruism is an evolved trait, but it has served our species quite well – both on the individual and communal level.

The stories of the bible were written to control human kind. We each have a spirit within, we have free will,we have the higher intelligence to ask questions and wonder where we came from and why. Do most of us really think man was created? If god is so loving and kind why do the good and the innocent suffer? Don’t give me a quote from the bible I’ve read it and there is NO justification.Is the killing in this world just a big joke to him? The beleivers thought Jesus would come back in their lifetime? Why didn’t he? The bible is full of contradictions over and over. If god created Adam and Eve where did the other “tribes” come from that their sons found brides in? Did god forget to mention those to the writer? The bible makes no sense. It does give us beautiful stories. It also gives us hatred and mayhem. It tells us to be kind to one another but tells us to kill if we have to especially to defend him. Religion is the downfall of man kind. Belief in your own spirit your free will to know right from wrong and to do right always it what will save you. When you die you are dead. Maybe the spirit goes on, maybe it doesn’t. If believing in heaven makes you live a better life than do it. I just keep thinking about all the lives that have been lost “in the name of God” and I cringe.
I would like to know too, if you don’t believe in evolution how do you explain the skeletans that have been found? How do we explain beings on other continents that had no knowledge of god? Wouldn’t god have talked to everyone? Let’s suppose that the anglo saxon’s had never left europe, would the Indians have ever changed their way of life? Was the whole populization of the world in god’s plan? How about electricity,cars, nuclear power, cell phones, sattelites, trips to the moon and mars? Are these a part of our evolution or god’s plan. If all this life on this world was his plan then for some it has been a cruel joke. No truly loving god could allow so much misery. No words from the bible will make me believe it. We are our own destiny. We live in the hell we make or we live in our own heaven while we are here. You choose you have free will.

It is futile to argue over THEORIES> just something to fill time when we really need to be looking towards the FUTURE and how to save ourselves from our own destruction

Oh Ben, Ben, Ben….certainly there’s something more constructive you could have picked for your glorious uphill battle. Certainly there’s something else you could have picked in order to see your name in lights once again. But evolution? The only thing you’re doing is faning the fundamentalist flame. Perhaps, Ben, you should give a good study to biology, say about eight years – four for a B.S. and another four for a PhD I might take you seriously. But for now, please stick to comedy and eye drops commercials

“Ben is entitled to his view as the other side is to its. Just deal with it.”
Being entitled to a view is one thing, but nobody has the inherent “right” to be taken seriously. Sorry, but that must be earned through logical and fact-based reasoning.
Creationists simply have no compelling evidence for their viewpoint and cry “it’s their right to believe as they wish”.
True, it’s your right, but that doesn’t mean that rationale people need accept it, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we should base an education curriculum or public policy on a mere belief in the supernatural.

The need to believe in things like gods and souls that continue to exist beyond death has obviously been selected for in the evolutionary process. There would be nothing wrong with this if it not for the fact that so much evil is committed in the name of God and religion. People like Stein who perpetuate lies and ignorance based on ancient superstitions do a grave disservice to the progress of humanity.

“we still don’t know how this so-called “evolution” works, nor how it has worked.”
YOU don’t. Those of us who have studied it seriously are well aware of how it works.

The scary thing here is the amount of anti-intellectualism in America. People are so sure that intellectuals can’t possibly know anything real. Where did that come from? Not that you have to be very intelligent to understand evolution, but this mistrust of science is going to get us into big trouble.

“Evolution is all about speculation, not Science.”
No. Try again. Evolution can be witnessed, everywhere from the flu virus on up.
And the other poster is right. You are simply trolling for your own amusement. Much like Ben Stein, some will do anything for a moment of attention.

The debate here is not about God. Science cannot and should not have anything to say about the existence of God. It is simply out of its jurisdiction, so to speak. But scientists can have a lot to say about the age of the earth, for example, which by the laws of physics must be about 4.6 billion years old. If the Bible implies (but does not state) that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, then the people who believe that every word of the Bible MUST be literally true in order for God to exist are heading for a train wreck. Most people are happy with accepting the evidence of the real world and letting their faith in God conform around that. It is only the rigid literalists who feel threatened by reality.

Jock- that’s because the education system in the U.S. needs to be overhauled and kids should be forced to have a thorough understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, math, foreign language, literature, and history before they graduate. Our system breeds mediocrity. However, in response to Swampthings posts, my question is this. First, God says his time is not our time in the Bible. Time is man-made. So, when he says 6 days, that could mean 6 days as we know it or 6 million years. Based on Albert Einstein’s space-time gravity continuum, it makes sense that the time of “creation” can be reconciled if one is to believe the Bible. You don’t have to discount science. Furthermore, time on earth is not what time is in space (space time is faster) further leading credence to the theory that god’s time of creation may not have been a literal 6 days. Secondly, in Genesis, when Cain killed Abel, God put a mark on Cain so that no one would kill him as he roamed from city to city. Now, if Adam (which means men) and Eve (which means women, plural), had Cain, Abel, and Seth (their first children according to the Bible), then who were all these people and how were all these cities created for Cain to roam? Please, someone who takes the Bible literally, explain that contradiction?

If God does not exist. Then there is no meaning to life and we should not follow mans rules or laws, for there is no punishment when we die. The only thing keeping some of us from doing what we please, we know there is a God and he does punish. Think about it.

“So-called “evolutionists” say that one, one-celled creature, a long time ago, somehow decided to crawl out of the sea. They say that human creatures came from that one creature.”
No. They don’t actually

[If macro-evolution has been successful, why haven't other organisms crawled out of the sea and resulted in other human creatures?? After all, success breeds success, no? Why did it stop after the first one?]
Because thats not how evolution works. Try learning about evolution from an actual biology class, not what your preacher spoon fed you last Sunday.
Evolution is driven by survival of the fittest. Anciently, animals that moved onto land had a HUGE advantage in doing so–near total lack of competition for food and territory. Any ocean dwellers trying to come onto land now will face much greater competition.
Creationists have a nasty habit of slapping their own preconceptions onto evolution theory, even though said ideas aren’t an actual part of evolution theory at all. Creationists believe humans were the final product of creation and so they apply this thinking to evolution. Reality is there is no “final product” of evolution. Its all a struggle for survival and that which survives best will leave more offspring.
Creationists often like to calculate fantastic improbabilities for evolution based on the above assumption. They think it was either the current ecosystem or nothing. They crunch the numbers for trying to randomly generate a particular protein and when that number turns out big, they declare evolution impossible. REALITY is evolution is not “trying” to produce any specific product. It is producing and selecting what ever works best from the choices produced by mutation. The probability of producing “something that gives ANY advantage” is clearly many orders of magnitude that the probability of producing “this one particular protein and nothing else” like Creationist starwmen claim.

[[["So-called "evolutionists" say that one, one-celled creature, a long time ago, somehow decided to crawl out of the sea. They say that human creatures came from that one creature."
No. They don't actually
-----------------------------------------------------------
Yes, they do.]]]
No, they don’t. Its CREATIONISTS who describe sudden transformations (pile of dust into Adam, a rib into eve). Evolution theory describes gradual changes over MANY GENERATIONS. No evolutionary biologist has EVER tried to suggest that animals went from single-celled creatures to land animals in one fell swoop. There are probably billions of steps in between the two.

“So, you get to make up your own morality as you go?”
Nope. You understand reciprocal altruism about as well as you understand evolution. Or so you would if you weren’t just trolling.
The concept of “do unto others as you would they do unto you” predates religion and is not confined to one religion.
Besides, in practice I have to say Christians are not one fraction more OR less likely to act immorally than any other religious or non-religious group of people on this planet.

“If God does not exist. Then there is no meaning to life and we should not follow mans rules or laws, for there is no punishment when we die. The only thing keeping some of us from doing what we please, we know there is a God and he does punish. Think about it.”
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This is Absolutely INCORRECT. Why does there have to be NO meaning to life without a God? There doesn’t first off, and secondly, if you’re only being GOOD for fear of retribution from a God then you are NOT REALLY a Good person, you’re ONLY doing it to save yourself. Atheists live by the Principle of Virtuous ETHICS. We Don’t kill or just do “anything we please” because there is a Right and Wrong that has NOTHING to do with Gods. Living a Virtuous Life in accordance with Nature and so as to NOT hurt or affect others is the way we live.

“Christians tend to act more morally than others.”
On what evidence do you base that assertion?

Believers like to suggest that people who don’t believe in God are not likely to act morally because “if there’s no penalty then I can do whatever I want.” Is that the only reason that you do or do not act? So someone doesn’t punish you? Is the only reason you don’t shoot people because God told you not to? I don’t shoot people because I have empathy for them and I know that shooting them would cause horrible pain to them and their families. I don’t shoot them because such acts would soon lead to a break-down in society. I don’t shoot them because I do not want to. I don’t shoot them because it is an almost universal concept among human societies that killing people is simply WRONG. All these reasons are consistent with all world views – Christianity, Islam, atheism, even most primitive tribes have figured that one out.

This is depressing, I always thought Stein was reasonably intelligent. I guess critical reasoning doesn’t always go hand in hand with eloquence and memorization abilities. I read some of the stuff on their (the movie’s) webpage and I actually laughed. Their point seems to be they don’t like the facts, so the facts must be wrong or that we should ignore reality and substitute our own. It’s a bunch of drivel targetting the 90-110 IQ strata. You can have them, Stein.

DEFINITION:
Theory
noun
1)In science, an explanation or model that covers a substantial group of occurrences in nature and has been confirmed by a substantial number of experiments and observations. A theory is more general and better verified than a hypothesis(Educated Guess).
2) a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; “theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses”; “true in fact and theory”

“Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
- Ambrose Bierce

“Hitler, was not a Christian, except when it suited him to say he was.”
The most profound evidence for Hitler’s Christianity comes from Mein Kampf, written while Hitler was IN JAIL. At that time he had zero reason write propaganda.

Robert041159 is right.
So many with intellectual pride, however, fail to remember and understand that the scientific method was developed by Christians who believed Genesis and wanted to discover more about God’s creation in order to understand the Creator.
Is it not absurd that the same mind can believe in the theory of evolution as taught in schools AND the necessity of ecological diversity as illustrated by a complex food web? They are mutually exclusive. Either:
(A) Every aspect of my daily personal experience proving that the natural tendency is for things to become more disorganized rather than better organized is false, and Darwin’s theory of the origin of the species is true
OR
(2) My experience is true, and God designed and created both the hummingbird and the flower that evolutionists have to say “co-evolved” because it’s stunningly obvious neither could produce a second generation without the other.
I used to be full of intellectual pride, too, but have discovered that creation does, indeed, testify.

“So many with intellectual pride, however, fail to remember and understand that the scientific method was developed by Christians who believed Genesis and wanted to discover more about God’s creation in order to understand the Creator.”
Appeal to authority fallacy and grotesque over generalization. The scientific method was developed in MANY places in parallel all around the world. Most of those people were NOT Christian.
“Is it not absurd that the same mind can believe in the theory of evolution as taught in schools AND the necessity of ecological diversity as illustrated by a complex food web? They are mutually exclusive.”
This alone proves you never were really educated in evolution. Complex food webs evolve along with the rest of the biosystem.
“Every aspect of my daily personal experience proving that the natural tendency is for things to become more disorganized rather than better organized is false, and Darwin’s theory of the origin of the species is true”
Evolution is NOT a lowering of disorganization. Complexity =/= order. They are two completely different concepts.
“My experience is true, and God designed and created both the hummingbird and the flower that evolutionists have to say “co-evolved” because it’s stunningly obvious neither could produce a second generation without the other.”
They are dependent NOW. There is no reason to believe this was always the case. Specialization allows for different allocation of resources. One can easily see why this argument is wrong by looking at human society over the last century. We are currently completely dependent on modern technology (cars, electricity, refrigerators, etc, etc, etc). Take that away and fast numbers of humans will rapidly die off. By creationist logic, human society MUST have been “designed” with all our advanced technology already in place.
“I used to be full of intellectual pride, too, but have discovered that creation does, indeed, testify.
God does love each of you as His precious creation, and Swampthing, trolling or not, gave you the clear warning that Paul shared with love: you are without excuse.”
And why should we take literally a book that features talking animals?

Martin…good post. For people who take the Bible literally, it seems Leviticus 19:27 and 1 Corinthians are contradictory? Plus, no one answered my question from before. If Cain killed Abel and they were Adam and Eve’s first children, then why did God have to put a mark on Cain so that the people in the other cities would not kill him? Where did these people and cities come from?

Jock- HA HA HA… Now that’s funny. THAT I had not thought of!

As far as ai was thinking, things are DESIGNED for a particular function, whether designed by humans or natural selection. Things that are designed well, function well. But then I was never an English major, so who knows?

I think Ben Stein is an intelligent, honest and outstanding scholar who has come to realize the truth about evolution. If you look at the evidence without going at it with a pre-conceived idea (there is no God, there is a God, we were seeded by aliens,etc.) Darwinism is not good science.

Yes, I have read some of “Origin of Species”. I have also read “The Naked Ape.” I also have read how WASP’s used Darwinism to enslave and put down all other peoples except their group. I think this is why European stock wants to hang onto an un-provable THEORY.

Dan Tucker
Re: “how WASP’s used Darwinism to enslave and put down all other peoples except their group.”
That is known as “social darwinism” and has absolutely nothing to do with either Darwin or Evolution. The “WASPs” you speak of took a darwinian concept and twisted it into something evil.
Don’t blame Darwin, he never even said “survival of the fittest” which is so often tacked to his name.

Ben Stein:
“but I’m a rebel to my core”
Since when did working for the Nixon administration, being a loyal member of the Republican Party and making a movie to pander religious fundamentalists make one a rebel?
“And you know what else? We’re sick of being pushed around by the intelligentsia, and, even though I am one of the intelligentsia, we don’t like being pushed around by other members of the intelligentsia, and I don’t even like pushing myself around.”
So what, the intelligentsia isn’t always right? Guess what, Joe Sixpack is even less right. And what are all these so-called things that are being pushed around? Algebra? Vaccinations? Science? History? Yeah, lets trow those pesky, boring things away so every numbnuts can get A+ in school again.
Dan Tucker
“I think Ben Stein is an intelligent, honest and outstanding scholar ”
You must be smoking

Thanks, Pyrite, for the quote. Here’s another to ponder:
Christian: One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
I wasn’t born an atheist, I came to that discipline through years of observing all religious groups and the horrible things they do to their fellow men in the name of their respective god or gods. It gradually became clear to me that there was less to religion than meets the eye. I found that altruism does a darn good job by itself, without the necessity for ritual, mutual admiration societies and hypocrisy.

How can someone logic take the Bible as the rule of law? A book that was written so long ago by so many many different hands, living on a historic setting, with such limited scientific knowledge? (If you ever played telephone as as kid you know how the facts change as the relay goes!) Religion comes from the fear of accepting that we are just another piece of a great universal mosaic. With our ability to rationalize cames the need to justify our existence by making ourselves more special than other beings. Our belief in an after life is a mind game played collectively to avoid facing the fact that we are only part of a turning wheel without beginnings or ends, but just phases.

Leviathan is a creature that was described in the Bible and as it turns out, there is proof of a very similar creature that has been discovered by science. Spinosaurus is the most serpentine dragon like creature that both walks upright on land and also swims. The head is very snakelike and it is the only dinosaur of that size that has conical teeth which shows the creature ate fish and many other things.
The other dinosaur described in Scripture is the “Dumb Beast” Behemoth which fits the description of sauropods which, true to the name of Behemoth, has a very small brain cavity.

For Cassio Alves: What you read in the bible has also been emasculated by the various churches in order to bring the Bible more in line with Church Doctrine. What hubris!

PQQAm – “There are hundreds of accounts of the same worldwide flood that is found in the Bible. It is the same account of the same evil men, the same ark, same the animals, the same birds that were released to see if it was safe to go outside.”
You really need to put some effort into getting your facts straight because your statement is mostly not true. There might very be hundreds of flood myths, but very few of them have many significant similarities with Genesis.
How about 20 different Native American flood myths? Only the Hareskin story has a few significant similarities to the Genesis story.
How about 3 different African flood myths? Only the Masai (East Africa) story is significantly similar to the Genesis version. This one is pretty close actually. But that is not surprising when you consider that part of the Ethiopian (East Africa) Chrisitan tradition is that the Ark of the Covenent and one of the lost tribes of Israel ended up in Ethiopia.
How about 3 European version? The Greco-Roman version has some similarities to Genesis, but the Celtic and Scandanavian versions don’t.
How about 11 different Asian versions? None of them have very many significant similarities. The Hindu version mentions a raft & not an ark. The Jino (China) version felled a great tree for a canoe. The Kammu (Thailand) version used a drum. The Lisu (China) version used a gourd. The Miao/Yao used a gourd seed or a gourd, which might be the same because I think a gourd is a large seed. In the Santal (Bengal) version they hid in a cave! The Shan (Burma) version used a strong raft and he took only a cow.

Dan – “I think this is why European stock wants to hang onto an un-provable THEORY.”
Speaking of un-provable. If ID is a legitimate scientific hypothesis, let alone a full blown theory, where is the objective evidence from a single repeatable and verifiable experiment that supports even one of the NECESSARY assumption upon which ID relies? There is no objective data from repeatable and verifiable experiments because ID as most proponents push it relies entirely upon circular logic and unprovable assumptions. ID is not testable, therefore it is not even a legitimate hypothesis.
* Assumption – A supreme intelligent designer must necessarily exist.
** So, where is the objective experimental data that proves this supreme intelligent designer exists?
* Assumption – The supreme intelligent designer that must necessarily exist, also must necessarily be the Judeo Christian God of the Bible.
** So, Where is the objective experimental data that proves the Judeo Christian God of the Bible is the supreme intelligent designer?
** Or, where is the objective data that proves the intelligent designer wasn’t Jupiter, Zeus, Buddha, Odin, Zoraster, etc. etc.?
** Also, where is the objective data that proves the creation stories from every other religious tradition are wrong?
* Assumption – It is impossible for random uncontrolled events, even if given billions of years, to evolve into more complex life from less complex.
** Where is the objective data that proves more complex life CANNOT EVER evolve from less complex life?
** Or, where is the objective data that proves God could not or did not design evolution as the process?
* Assumption – There is one, and only one, supreme intelligent designer.
** Where is the objective experimental data that proves there was only one designer and not multiple designers?
*** Maybe plants, mammals, fish, insects, etc. etc. had separate designers. Or each specific plant, animal, and insect had its own designer, meaning there was one designer each for lions, and tigers, and bears – oh my, etc. etc.
*** Maybe each complex system had its own designer, and then different designers combined the systems in different ways to make different life forms.
*** In other words, maybe one group of designer designed the pieces of the puzzles, and then different designers put the pieces together in as many different ways as they could think of.
* Assumption – Only a supreme intelligent designer, i.e. one that is omnipotent and omniscient, is intelligent enough to design all of the life we see.
** Where is the objective data that proves a being, or beings, of lesser or non-omniscient intelligence could not possibly have designed any or all of the life on this planet?
*** Maybe a prehistoric but extinct race of people used eugenics and genetic engineering programs to design the life we now see.
*** Maybe a prehistoric but extinct race of people cracked the unified field theory and built machines able to manipulate matter into energy at will. Then, instead of using low tech eugenics and genetic engineering, they just had the high tech machines design and create the life we see now.
*** Or, maybe highly advanced aliens came here and did it with either of those two methods.
At least be intellecually honest enough to admit that ID has no OBJECTIVE empirical support.

Lilith – “All of you are wasting your time on arguing about THEORIES….”
By definition theories have objective empirical evidence to support them. They are testable. The results are repeatable. Predictions can be made and verified. Then, when appropriate because of new objective data, we modify the theories when new data supports a reasonable change. At least real scientists don’t ever justify their hypothesis and theories by say “because we say so”, or “well, that is just what I believe.” And they never ever rely on circular logic.
The theory of gravity “is just a theory.”
The theory of the atomic structure of the atom (you know, protons, neutrons, and electrons), “is just a theory.”

I apologized for the poor spelling. was is a bit of a hurry.

Pathetic how creationists make up the most bizarre claims in order that it can fit to their fairytale. Expanding earth? Please…

The two very different kinds of dinosaurs described in the Bible proves once again that the accounts given in the Bible are true.

Ben Stein is merely making the point that scientists should have the freedom to question evolution. You may dislike Ben Stein, but can’t we all agree on freedom of expression? Being fired or ostracized because of a different viewpoint leads us down the wrong path. Neither creationism nor evolution should be treated as scientific “fact” because, in order for something to be proved, someone must be able to reproduce the results. They should both be taught as theories.
For those who were taught evolution from grade school through high school as fact, I recommend the book “Icons of Evolution.” It’s a fascinating look at how the originators of the theory falsified results to match up with their point of view. Sometimes they were not being deceptive, but just guessing, i.e. regarding embryos.
Finally, for those who want to believe in creationism AND evolution I would direct you to the young faint sun paradox: The sun is composed mostly of helium and hydrogen. Scientists estimate that the sun contains enough hydrogen to continue burning at the present rate for 5 billion more years. As stars continue to burn, the conversion of hydrogen into helium changes the composition of the core, causing it to grow brighter with age. Evolutionists believe that life arose on earth about 3.8 billion years ago. However, the sun would have been 25% dimmer then, and the earth would have been much too cold to support life. I would also like to add that carbon dating is only accurate to a few thousand years. After that you can get all kinds of crazy numbers. Scientists have long known that everyday objects that we know the age of can be dated wrongly.

Evolution is not able to explain the popping into existence that it assumes. Not only can evolution not explain the popping into existence, it cannot explain how the Bible got a description of two distinct different dinosaurs in there. It also cannot explain the diversity of life both plant and animal or how one thing that supposedly popped into existence turned into other things. It also cannot explain male and female. It’s as if it was planned that way for male and female to reproduce and live a designated amount of time. There had to be a “pop” of some kind or another for life to go from non-existent to be a living creature of one kind or another. Evolution is not able to explain that. No amount of baseless propaganda will ever change this fact.

cturple:
okay, so it’s 50,000 years… that’s still a far cry from the “millions & billions” scientists throw around when they talk about ages of rocks, etc.
Re: your comment about equal validity – we’re talking about scientists who have doctorates questioning evolution and being ostracized, not just Joe Smith preaching on the street corner. What amazes me is the closed mindedness on both sides of the issue. People raised in church are afraid to question creationism and people raised on evolution are likewise afraid. Science, in its purest form, is absent from fear. What scares me is that scientists have replaced letting the facts lead them in a direction with directing facts to support what they already believe. And we should all be afraid for the mind-numbed kids leaving the education system who are not taught to think, but rather to accept the “facts” given them.
If you want substantiating evidence of a creator, I can only point you to my own experience. Simply put, I was a mess when I was living under my own morals & rules. When I committed my life to living as a new creation in Christ I found balance and peace. You may think of me as a fool for having faith, but at least you don’t have to worry about me being just another statistic you hear about on the evening news. As far as I know, believing in evolution has never made a person strive to be a better person, love their neighbor, or give to charity, but believing in God has. Human beings are about as imperfect as they come… so why do we think we can answer life’s greatest mysteries?

Another thing is that mankind has lost countless more races than it has ended up with. Does that mean that we are any better? Do you know what we are good for? We are good for losing even more of our gene pool. That’s what your evolution (bad beliefs and practices) does for us. It does nothing for us and it makes a monkey out of us.
Remember how evolutionists were all raving about how dumb the “primitive” sauropods were? Yeah, well the Bible called them “dumb beasts” thousands of years before any so called scientists ever learned of them.

Kim: They use different chemical methods depending on the item to be analyzed. Carbon 14 is used by archaeologists a lot. Potassium Argon dating works up to 4 billion years. Carbon 14 can’t be used to date rocks – although I’ve some creationists use it to support their arguments. We’re talking about many many many scientists with doctorates that don’t question evolution. Evolution is nothing but change over time. How can you question something so simple and so elegant? Obviously, living things change with time. The climate gets colder, new species arise from the old that thrive in cold weather. Vegetation gets sparse, and new species arise that can survive with very little vegetation. Climate change produces drier regions, and new species arise that survive with very little water. The planet has been changing since it’s been a planet. To suggest that an animal remains unchanged is what I find unbelievable.
And your personal evidence of a creator is evidence of the power of suggestion. It’s what works with all the 12 step programs. If you believe in something, it becomes real for you. I don’t “believe” in evolution – it simply exists as a natural process, like gravity. I strive to be a better person, to help others – because they’re the right things to do.

Kim – Maybe it would help to consider a couple of real examples of the type of evolutionary change to which cturple is referring.
Bacteria exist today that did not exist a few decades ago. They have a new survival ability their ancestors did not possess. Specifically, they are resistant to antibiotics while their ancestors were not. Some of the new bacteria are even resistant to antibiotics that did not exist a few decades ago when their ancestors were not resistant to antibiotics at all. So in addition to having at least one new ability, there ability to resist antibiotics is either better than it used to be, or that is a second new ability.
There is a white moth native to the British isles. An occasional mutation causes some of the white moths to be born black. But the black offspring don’t survive long because the trees the moths live in have white flowers and so predators spot them easily. However, during the 19th century the Brits were burning so much coal that coal soot and dust covered the white flowers and made them dark grey or black. Consequently the black moths survived and the white ones were eaten. Eventually black became the normal color for the moths and white was the mutation. Then, when coal usage declined, the flowers got white again and so are the moths.

PQQAm: You are operating under a very common misconception. Evolution doesn’t produce “better” species – it results in species that are better adapted for survival in the condition that they exist in. Polar bears are not better than brown bears. They are better adapted to live in polar conditions. Human beings evolved a higher level of intelligence than other primates did. We still don’t know how it happened, but it did allow us to reproduce VERY successfully. Our cousins the chimpanzees and gorillas are on the verge of extinction because of our success. And that is how evolution works. Some species succeed – some don’t. It isn’t a question of right or wrong – it just is part of life. The creationists’ argument about complexity is really way off base. Complexity doesn’t necessarily equal superiority. If you build a series of bridges one step at a time, to cross a network of rivers, gorges, and valleys, your bridge system is going to be VERY complex. But a monorail designed ahead of time that contemplates all the bumps in the trail, capable of crossing them all in one seamless journey, is going to be much simpler, and obviously better designed. Complexity is the result of evolution, clearly. Animals and plants have had to cross many proverbial rivers, gorges, and valleys to get where they are today. And our anatomy reflects it.

cturple, the end result is less species not more.

“Animals and plants have had to cross many proverbial rivers, gorges, and valleys to get where they are today. And our anatomy reflects it.”
…and our geology reflects the flood.
Our anatomy also reflect our Creator.

In evolution, you need millions of consecutive *positive* changes in the life of each and every creature (at the same time) that exists. One negative change and the species is doomed for a chance to try again somewhere else at some other time.
What we have on earth is million upon millions of supposed consecutive positive changes for every plant, animal and creature that exists and now it has been proven that all we have are consecutive negative changes for the past 6000 years.
Go figure! It doesn’t add up!
All you misled people in your blind faith need to snap out of it and face the facts.
Can you possibly understand what impossible millions of times over is?

cturple, the end result is less species not more.
PQQAm: there IS no end result. Evolution is a continuous process. More species, fewer species – what is your point? You’re still not understanding what evolution is. Try this – imagine a glass of water. Now replace the water with milk – one molecule at a time, over a period of a million years. When does it stop being water and start being milk? If these were animals – we would have two very obviously different species – and many different species in between. The number of species at any given time is totally irrelevant to anything.

A whole society has been duped by this baseless belief called evolution in the hopes they do not ever have to face up to the facts. The media and the government should be ashamed and disgraced to endorse such a baseless belief as this.
Instead of ridiculing the historical evidence for a Creator, people should have paid more attention in order to avoid have to face the disgrace now.
You have it coming to you and I told you so. May God bless Ben Stein for his suffering for the sake of the truth of history and the facts. I hope he continues to follow the “evidence trail” that leads us to our Creator Messiah (Christ) Yeshua (Jesus). If he only recognizes “the Creator”, that is half the battle. God bless you Ben Stein!

cturple, a “reflection” is not necessarily perfect.

…and it is only a reflection. It is not the same thing.

cturple, evolution is not continuous when everything dies out. You are kidding yourself.
PQQAm : No dear, I’m not kidding myself, because I understand the concept of evolution. When “everything dies out?” what does that even mean?

When everything dies out, that means that there is no more life to speak of on earth if everything continues (dying out) as it has since the Creation.
To have life reduced to microbes and insects is not what was intended by our Creator who made as the only reflection made in His image and likeness.
There is no purpose in life for the sake of being alive when everything dies out in the end. There has to be something more.

“To have life reduced to microbes and insects is not what was intended by our Creator ”
This is the epitome of arrogance. To assume you actually understand the intentions of your “creator.”

Quietman: thanks for the link. I think environment is the primary factor in evolution. It’s always nice to read an article that supports my view.

PQQAm
Re: “When everything dies out,…”
Never in the fossil record has there been evidence of this. The worst extinction known was the PT extinction where 95% of terrestrial species and 70% of marine species went extinct. But that remaining 5% of terrestrial life slowly evolved into the forms that we have today and continue to evolve.

You guys have a LOT of faith in evolution to keep on kicking. I have learned to put no confidence in the flesh. It is like your evolution is the all powerful god. That is really amazing considering that we are losing species like crazy. It is more like gullible and believing anything except what makes any sense.

PQQAm – “You guys have a LOT of faith in evolution to keep on kicking.”
I will repeat the same recommendation someone else made a few days ago -”Invest in a dictionary.” Faith is a belief without evidence. Blind faith is a belief that is held in spite of evidence that conflicts with the belief. What we do have is confidence in conclusions built upon a foundation of objective evidence through the application of independent rational thought.
*** “That is really amazing considering that we are losing species like crazy.”
So what if we really are losing species like crazy? Even if that is true, other species better able to survive their environment will only replace the ones that die out.
*** “It is more like gullible and believing anything except what makes any sense.”
And just in case it takes you a while to get around to getting a dictionary so you can correctly apply definitions:
Gullible (Adj.) – “Tending to trust and believe people, and therefore easily tricked or deceived.”
We don’t believe people, we believe the evidence. We don’t blindly trust people (or a book written by imperfect people), we trust our own independent rational thought and the valid conclusions we are able to craft. Besides, those of us who do have faith, have faith in God without sacrificing reason. We prefer to believe what we see instead of only seeing what we believe. We prefer to worship God instead of a book. And we don’t see spirituality/religion and science as necessarily being mutually exclusive options. They are effectively like two different lenses in the same pair of glasses that allow us to simultaneously view things from two different perspectives. Plus, our glasses don’t have blinders on them!

PQQAm
“When Evolution Tends To Maximize The Diversity And Functioning Of Ecosystems
ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2008) — CNRS researchers based at University of Montpellier 2(1), working in collaboration with scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom(2), have recently demonstrated that evolution can lead to greater biological diversity, and particularly to improvements in the functioning of ecosystems. In the current context of the erosion of biodiversity these results, published in Nature, underline the importance of evolution as a structuring force for ecosystems, and open new paths to interpreting the relationship between the diversity of living beings and the functioning of ecosystems.”

PQQAm – “Faith is what is hoped for without any evidence.”
Wrong. There you go again, making up and/or distorting definitions. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary the definition that fits the context of these discussions is: “faith – firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” The definition I quoted in my previous post was from Encarta dictionary, and that one basically said the same thing.
Hope has nothing to with it. Hope is not even an element of any other definition for faith in Webster’s. Get a dictionary and then learn how to use it. Or are we assuming too much when we give you credit for knowing what a dictionary is and how to one? Just in case; dictionaries are books that list words in alphabetical order. After the words in the list are more words that explain what the first word means and thus how to use it correctly.
Evolution has massive amounts of supporting evidence. You simply refuse to accept any of it. Indeed, you refuse to accept anything that does not fit into your myopic distorted believe system. At least have enough integrity to admit that the evidence is there and you simnply refuse to accept any of it.
I can at least respect valid rational arguments with which I disagree. So far you have yet to make a statement worthy of any respect.

Belief is something that you hope is true. …without having evidence.
God doesn’t need evolution to Create things. He can do that without needing chance to be the real Creator. All the glory for everything that we see belongs to God. None of the glory belongs to rocks and none of the glory belongs to chance.

Yeah, “big words” (and big numbers) has served very well to fool a lot of people who thought that those big words and big numbers were significant enough to have that jump in reason to give people hope that things just popped into existence and those big words and big numbers give them a false hope for many more jumps in their reason to hope that things popped from being one creature to being another totally different creature with totally different DNA. There is a BIG difference between a sure hope and a false hope.
People like to say that all DNA is 95% the same. How can the DNA be 95% the same when the creature is nearly 100% a different creature. There is something wrong with their comparisons. DNA may be 95% similar in design (being from the same Creator and all) but the significant differences make a totally different creature. The similarity is that each of the creatures compared have flesh and blood but not all flesh is the same. A cow is a cow. A pig is a pig. A chicken is a chicken. A lamb is a lamb. Each one is very different on the inside and on the outside. None of them are 95% the same. It is more like they are 5% the same and 95% different. This means that the language of DNA is clearly not understood because if it was, people would be remarking at how different each of the samples of DNA are.
In order to understand something, you need to learn from someone who has understanding.

B K
Sorry – that was a direct quote from the article. I’ll try not to do it again. :)

BK – I thought your head might hurt after bashing it against the brick-pqq wall. lol
Asimov had a way with robots, didn’t he. Wish I had the time to read for pleasure these days. My semester is winding up shortly, and everything I’ve been putting off now has to be moved to top of my list of “stuff I can’t put off any longer.” lol. i wish i wasn’t such a procrastinator.

The thing is that since we are what we believe, we do believe things. We have to believe one thing or another. Much of what we believe could be wrong and is wrong until we find reason to believe something else that has more of a basis. The hope concept comes into play in the outcome of what we believe which makes us what we are. We hope that we are what we need to be.
BK, you seem to be unaware of the biblical definition of faith that was given in the Bible. Since truth is eternal, we hope that truth is very much a part of us and what we believe. What we believe will either give us hope or desperation. It is a good thing that the truth is good news otherwise we would have no hope (because of all that God has done for us Himself).
The truth of God’s word gives us good reason to have hope. God’s word has never been proven wrong so we still have hope. That is why I trust in God’s word because I have never been disappointed by it. Also, there is no other hope for us to trust and believe in. Hope is very much a part of belief and trust. We need to put our hope and our trust in things that are true.
That is what the teaching of the Bible is all about.

PQQAm – You grossly oversimplify what truth is. Not all truth is eternal. Moral truth ends or changes when someone learns that a sincere belief they held is false. Subjective truth ends or changes when reliable evidence proves that a subjective truth is false and that a different subject truth is more reliable. Sometimes, when we have enough objective evidence, we are able to change subjective truth into objective truth. There are eternal objective truths, but not all of them are knowable, and many will never be know regardless of how far we evolve technologically.
I am very aware of many Biblical passages dealing with the concept of faith in the spiritual sense. That is totally irrelevant. Evolution is a natural process and has nothing to with matters of faith. And matters of faith have nothing to with evolution. Besides, the Bible is not a dictionary. It does not provide a single definition or a single example of faith. There are dozens of passages in which the Bible addresses the concept.
The spiritual truths and the moral truths the Bible teaches are totally separate from the truths (i.e. facts) concerning objective reality and the actual physical nature of the universe and natural processes. Faith in God’s messages and faith in Jesus’ teachings are in no way dependent upon a blind literal and mindless interpretation of the Bible. Independent rational thought is not an impediment to having faith in God, and faith in God does not have to be an impediment to understanding and believing the world and universe as they really are. Understanding natural processes does not require faith of any kind because natural processes are testable. Natural processes are knowable through sense experience. Therefore, natural processes are eventually understandable through rational interpretation of objective evidence.
However, understanding spiritual, metaphysical, and or supernatural issues and processes is completely dependent upon faith because those issues and processes are not testable. We can only approach them with pure rationalism. Unfortunately, pure rationalism is very fallible because it is not testable or verifiable. Achieving certain knowledge is impossible in those areas, so the best we can hope for is to achieve probable knowledge when it comes to matters of faith.
I have absolute faith that God is omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, and pure love. Recognizing and acknowledging that the Bible contains factual errors does not diminish God in anyway, it does not diminish God’s moral lessons in any way, or my faith in any way. The meaning of what the Bible says is infinitely more important than the words themselves or the book that contains them.
You keep interjecting spiritual and theological issues into a discussion about physical processes that you are clearly unable to comprehend and are totally unwilling to try to understand. You reflexively reject everything you do not understand. Spiritual and physical processes have no relevance to each other. Now, if you really want to discuss theology then say so and we can move to a blog where that would be appropriate. There is another blog around here about God’s existence.

cturple – Asimov most certainly did have a way with robots – he was freakin brilliant. Before I went back to school part time on top of working full time I used to average reading one or two books a month for fun. Now I am doing good if I can get in one during Christmas break and two during summer. Next we have finals coming up in a few weeks and a bunch of homework and research this weekend. Yippee.

It is John that said the measurements (or proportions) on earth are the same as the measurements in heaven.
The truth that God is the Creator of everything (up to and including the two dinosaurs which He Himself has also even described in detail for us) is an eternal truth.
The two descriptions of the two different kinds of dinosaurs is almost as impressive and straightforward as the Messianic prophecies if it was not for the fact that the Messianic prophecies were spoken before the events occurred.
Believing that one thing suddenly appeared as something else takes a lot of faith. You like to say that it took a long time but in the “fossil record” it was suddenly.
A deer turned into a dolphin???!!! Come on now, that takes a lot of faith! …and it is baseless faith (with no evidence at all). At least what I believe, there is historical documentation of the way things happened which is also a lot easier to believe.
We can’t assume to know everything. In Jeremiah 33:3, God says call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things of which you do not know.

PQQAm – “It is John that said the measurements (or proportions) on earth are the same as the measurements in heaven.”
So what? What does this mean relative to a discussion of natural processes and how is it even relevant?
*** “Believing that one thing suddenly appeared as something else takes a lot of faith.”
So it is a good thing that evolutionary theory does not ever hold that anything ever suddenly appeared as something else isn’t it. No faith is necessary because that statement is completely false. That belief is either a misunderstanding of the facts, a distortion of the facts, or an intentional fabrication people use to perpetuate propaganda and create a straw man fallacy. Several people have told you several times that is not true yet you continue to repeat a falsehood. So, you are either too stupid to understand what people have described to you, or you are a liar because you are knowingly repeating a falsehood to maintain the propaganda.
*** “You like to say that it took a long time but in the “fossil record” it was suddenly.”
Suddenly in geological terms is very different than suddenly relative to a clock or even a normal human life. One million years is suddenly relative to a billion years. Many forms of life can evolve and go extinct during a million years. Life forms evolving and going extinct during 100 thousand years is very sudden relative to a billion years. An extinction event that takes 10 thousand years to wipe out 70% of life is almost instantaneous in geological terms.
*** “A deer turned into a dolphin???!!!”
Another lie. Do you make this stuff up yourself or pass on the lies other people make up? Of course there is no evidence for this because someone made it up. Faith is not necessary for this one either because evolution is not responsible for this fabrication. This is simply another made up false belief so people like you can manufacture a straw man fallacy. Making up things to discredit evolution does not prove evolution is wrong, it only proves the dishonesty of the people who make up these lies.
Doesn’t lying violate the 9th Commandment?

Yeah, didn’t you know that is the latest thing that evolution say? …that a “deer like” creature turned into a dolphin?
You have to be more careful about the kind of people you identify with.
Someone had been saying that I came up with the idea of a parallel Universe. It wasn’t me, it was John that said the proportions are the same and it is Christ that holds everything together.
The truth is eternal it is lies that are temporal.

BK – the extra classes aren’t really for fun – but I think they will be beneficial in finding work. Historical archaeology, and archaeological lab methods. My major is anthro, with an archaeo focus. I’m a nontraditional student – I’ll be graduating at age 55. I took money from my pension to support me whil I’m going to school. Funny thing is – I’ll probably spend more money getting the degree, than I’ll make from having it. Archaeologists don’t make a lot of money. lol

…oh yeah, and don’t forget to study His story. : )

cturple – No wonder you know so much about the primary topic here. Since you never smacked me down for making any stupid statements I guess I didn’t muck things up too badly.
Loving what you do is more important than how much you get paid. In economics that is called phychic benefit and actually counts toward quantifying your total economic benefit. Yeah, I’m an idealist still. I’m nontraditional too and should be older than you when I finally finish grad school. One of the summer programs overseas that my junior college does is a three week dig in Macedonia. I am thinking about doing it for fun the summer before I will be able to take classes full time. I’m looking at a BA in organizational leadership and possibly a double major for a BS in management. Grad school is still too far away to know what that will be. That is why I take some classes for fun before moving up to the big house. Once I get there my honors courses will probably the only fun ones.

PQQAm
Not dolphins, whales.

BK – Your posts were all great. And you have much more patience than I.
;-) I so envy you the field school in Macedonia. My finances are pretty restricted, so I’m just doing a volunteer dig in south Georgia. No accreditation – that’ll have to wait until after I finish up here and move back to Michigan for grad school. (I’m in Florida) I worked in the business world for 35 years – this is what I always wanted to do. I’m so happy things worked out the way they did. I know I’m appreciating school much more than if I had gone right out of high school.

PQQAm – “OK then, where did the dolphins come from? Dogs? Bears?”
They came from a creature that was just slightly different than they are. And that one came from a creature that was just slightly different than it, and so on and so on. After enough minor changes pile on to each other we end up at the beginning with an ancestor of the dog that is significantly different, but still has many similarities. If each ancestor was only 0.10% different genetically, and each ancestor species was alive for 10,000 years before the environment caused enough survival pressure for a specific minor change to become necessary, then it would take one million years for a 10% overall change to occur. How much difference in appearance does a 10% change in genetics cause? I don’t know, but I would bet a lunch that it would be a lot. In 10 million years we would have 100% change for a completely different creature. Well, that might be the common ancestor of all canines.
How much real difference is there between a dog, a coyote, and a wolf? And I don’t mean apperant difference just from how they look. I mean real genetic difference: 0.20% – 0.25% – 0.50%? I am not a biologist or geneticist so I am only guessing. My numbers could actually be way high, or they could be low by an order of magnitude.
Underneath those outside physical differences they all have nearly identical systems and nearly identical genetics. Muscular, skeletal, nervous, digestive, reproductive, endocrine, etc. etc. If you took a vertebrate zoology course, or especially a comparative anatomy course, you would find that the differences between the systems of vertebrates are almost insignificant. It takes far less genetic difference than most people think is necessary to cause a significant difference in appearance. But the differences in function of systems are almost negligible. Switch off a few genes here and there, switch on some different genes here and there, and a collie is now a golden retriever. Add few genes and maybe take out a couple of genes and the retriever is now a wolf.
How much real difference is there between a Chevy, Pontiac, BMW, or Lexus sedan? Every year they make minor changes to their models. Every few years they make significant changes to a line. But if a Model-T were standing next to a Dodge Viper or a Chevy Corvette, would anyone truly be able see how the Model-T could eventually lead to a Corvette? But what if a sports car from each decade were in between the Model-T and the Viper. Then it would be much easier to connect the dots and fill in some of the blanks. If the Viper were instead a NASCAR stock car, would it be easier or harder? If the Viper were a Formula One Ferrari would it be easier or harder? Connecting the dots and filling in the blanks may not be 100% accurate, but it is reasonably accurate.
Now imagine the same kind of subtle changes we see happen to vehicles needing 1,000 or 10,000 or even 100,000 times longer to occur. Instead of people making periodic changes to the different models of animals (or plants) gradual minor changes in the environment influences which survival traits help or hinder the survival of a species. Sometimes a change from a mutation eventually leads to a dead end, sometimes they don’t. Most of mammoth’s contemporaries are extinct because the planet is now too warm and we hunted them out. A comet or asteroid impact near the great lakes didn’t help much either. And no, they have not yet found an impact crater and probably won’t. Most likely because it hit the ice sheet that was there back then.
Genetic study of human mitochondrial DNA has been able to determine that blue eyes in humans are probably the result of a mutation that occurred in Eastern Europe near the Black Sea. Brown eyes are “normal.” That mutation does not effect survival so it has stuck around. Because it is a recessive trait it took a few generations before it could spread enough for two people with that gene to have a child with blue eyes. As long as the parents or villagers didn’t kill the kid because its eyes were a different color than everyone else’s, you know, because it was spawn of the devil or a demon and people were that superstitious back then, that person would spread the trait to even more descendents. Now it is not an uncommon trait.
Not heard anything recently about the Ark of the Covenant.
Well, off to do microeconomics homework.

cturple – I didn’t know the Macedonian dig was at a regular school or training site. Now I know why it gets so much credit. It will be two years before going will be an option so that should be plenty of time to save for it.
Looking forward to going back to real winters?
I was in the Navy for 24 years. Started as a nuclear operator and ended up in HR as an EO advisor. Got a lot of training in OE, OD, HRM, and HRD. Even got to be a Malcolm Baldridge assessor for the IG at my last command. Spent three years in the Army Reserve before that.
Fortunately I learned that I love teaching, so actually knowing what I want to do helps to keep the focus on the goal. Still too early to have any clarity on grad school yet.

B.K.
Re: How much real difference is there between a dog, a coyote, and a wolf?
By definition, members of the same species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Dogs were bred by man from wolves and were once thought to be a new species but they are not genetically different enough so they have been placed in their parent species C. lupus as a subspecies*2.
Coyotes are a separate species but still genetically close enough to belong to the same genus.
Current Taxonomy:
Order: Carnivora*1
Suborder: Caniformia (“dog-like”)
Family: Canidae
Subfamily: Caninae (K-9s)
Genus: Canis
Species: C. latrans (Coyotes)
Species: C. lupus (wolves)
Species: C. lupus familiaris (dogs)
*1 Carnivora has only 2 suborders, the other is Feliformia (“cat-like”).
*2 they can breed but normally do not recognize each other as belonging to the same species. This leads to speciation via “genetic drift”.
p.s. You present a nice argument.

Quiet – can coyotes and wolves breed?

Okay – quick and dirty is yes – according to someone named Lynn Kandinsky on a blog. He/she says “Yes, and perhaps more often than used to be thought. Wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingoes and domestic dogs all belong to the genus Canis and can hybridize. Wolves often kill coyotes when the species cross paths, but when wolf numbers are low, male wolves sometimes crossbreed with female coyotes — although female wolves apparently don’t accept the smaller male coyotes as mates.
Some biologists have floated a hypothesis that the red wolf species once common in the eastern U.S. isn’t a true species but represents admixtures of gray wolf and coyote genes. And now there is concern that crossbreeding with coyotes may water down the gene pool of the gray wolves of eastern Canada.”
Indians.org agrees.
BBC agrees.
I’m going to say a qualified “probably.”

cturple – you beat me to the same question. I was wondering about that earlier today, especially if anyone has ever tried studies with artificial insemination to test the possibilities. I imagine that testing the ability to crossbreed would be a fairly quick and reliable way to verify how close various species are genetically. Maybe being in the same genus is sufficient.

their not there

Quietman – It sounds like subspecies are the gentic equivalent of the sociological concept of human subcultures. They could interact and reproduce, but they are different enough on the surface that they prefer to ignore each other if possible. The surface differences become more important than what they have in common. The major difference is that humans can make rational choices.

Oh yeah again. I knew about mules and was wondering how close donkeys and horses are genetically. The species definition makes sense. Maybe the coyotes figure on an instinctive level that mating is better than being killed. Especially since they are trading up for some better genes.

BK, you insist on criticizing the description that God gave of the dinosaurs and the words that He chose to describe the various aspects of the dragon. The heads of Leviathan are more than one Leviathan seen from a distance in the sea where the ships travel. The original description does not have multiple heads. That would be an aspect worth mentioning if it was true. It is not true so it was not mentioned. The armor is the scales that were also mentioned. The pleading is something that almost any creature can do without speaking. Laughing is an expression. The same kinds of expressions are used with the horse and ostrich also described. We happen to have horses and ostriches to this day. Leviathan was also described a number of years before the Babylonian exile. You happen to be scoffing at a description of a creature that we do not have living today. If you were to compare it to something, it would be something that has a snakelike head, neck and tail. It would be a creature that could stand up and walk. It would be a creature suited to water and an ability to eat fish and swim. That says Spinosaurus all over it. The “dumb beast” Behemoth says “dumb beast” sauropod all over it. You are scoffing at a descriptions that are rather shockingly realistic considering the kind of creatures that are being described. Just because it disproves evolution is no reason to try to discredit it. It is the truth. If you can’t face these simple facts, how can you be trusted other things. It’s there and it’s in your face so to speak. It is a foundation for knowing and understanding other things.

B K
There are 20 known subspecies of Coyote and they are all North American. While not as pretty as a wolf they appear to be better adapted to their environment, especially when it comes to interaction with humans. Maybe the wolves are trading up?

cturple
I forgot to mention that I found a new book that you might like called “The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey” by Chris Beard. You may recall his name from the chinese primate finds. I am about halfway through it (the reason I have not been as active here lately) and found it very interesting, especially the work he did on Eocene primates in the U.S. and their relationship to chinese Eocene primates.

Yes, an example would be nice but you don’t really know me so how could you provide an example of “filling in the holes” that you speak of.
The only place that I can think of that would be in any way metaphoric would be in the Garden of Eden when the snake spoke to Eve. The possibility or likelihood is that the devil used the snake to deceive Eve or took the form of a snake. It seems that later is more likely. That does not mean that every snake is the devil although the symbolism is still there.
Everything is real. The tree of life is real. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is real. What form these things take or where they went to is another issue but the teaching is that there is still a tree of life. We just have to be perfect before we can eat from it and that requires a new body because we don’t want to live forever in the body that we have.
Everything else is something that we can see and relate to. We have dinosaur bones so we can relate to the dinosaurs that are described. There are two of them so there is no symbolism associated with them other than what we or someone might apply to them. (We can’t say that one is good and the other evil because they are both just creatures like anything else).
There is no need to fill any “holes”. If it says that day and night is one day, it is one day. We don’t know any of the influences on anything since that time. We only know what things are today and we have history (historical records) to tell us what things used to be like.
All the dates and ages of people that are given are the same kind of dates and ages that we have today. The only thing that is different is the environment and the fact that people were able to live longer which makes a lot of sense. God said that He would shorten our lives to one hundred years. We have seen that. God said that the lives of people would be extended again. We have not yet seen that.
There is no breaking of any natural rules unless God does that Himself. Every change is through or by way of a prayer to God who does different things at different times.

To say that a day is getting longer is within reason. The so called creationists that believe that God used evolution to make things requires that days become shorter, much shorter.

Evening and morning is determined by the sun, not the moon. In the past 6000 years, it likely has not changed that much.
We have historical evidence and records of the Creation. These same records have accounts of dinosaurs that we know that we had because of their bones that we have found.

Our brain size is larger than that of the “dumb beast” Sauropod Behemoth but we have to use it for it to make any difference.
If God can hide the Ark of the Covenant below the Crucifixion site where Messiah was crucified and Have His blood drip down onto the mercy seat, He can preserve His word from corruption.
If God can hide two descriptions of two dinosaurs in Scripture like an elephant in the room, so that people don’t know that it’s there, He can also hide the age of the earth.
The information contained in the Bible is true. It has been proven to be true on every count. Every major place described in Scripture has been found. It is all there to this day. We can go see Mount Sinai. We can go see the rock that split where water came out. We can go see the red sea crossing and many other things and places described in the Bible even Noah’s Ark was said to have been found.

Finally I have been able to find a little time to get back to providing my examples. I have class Tues, Wed, & Thurs nights and I did a field trip during my off time yesterday. Hopefully I will be able to catch up with the commentary. So here are bunch for one single issue.
PQQAm – According to literalist interpretation of Genesis God created the earth in six literal days. This is what Genesis literally states:
Gen 1:3 ends with, “Thus evening came, and morning followed – the first day.”
Gen 1:8 ends with, “Evening came, and morning followed – the second day.”
Gen 1:13 states, “Evening came, and morning followed – the third day.”
But, Genesis also states on the fourth day, “God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day” (i.e. the sun)”, and the lesser one to govern the night” (i.e. the moon)”; and he made the stars.” Fact – If there is no sun to set there is literally by definition no evening. Fact – If there is no sun to rise there is literally by definition no morning. So, what is the literalist solution to this paradox?
Example: First you tried to rationalize it away with the following meaningless statement, “The mention of the day light and night light is a repeat or it was when He made the moon.” Genesis doesn’t say day light and night light, it says evening and morning. And so what if it was merely a repeat? That does not change the fact that evenings and mornings were not possible before the sun was made. Nor does it change the facts of the literal language Genesis uses. But it surely indicates your willingness to deviate from the literal language of Genesis when it is convenient.
Example: Next you tried to rationalize the facts away with the following meaningless statement, “God operates outside of time and space. The amount of time that God used to make things is not an issue. If Jesus healed instantly, it shows He is the Creator who is able to create instantly.”
So what if God operates outside of time and space! Agreed, the amount of time God used to make things is not an issue. I also agree that God can make things instantly (time relative to us) if God chooses to do so. That is all totally irrelevant to the fact that evenings and mornings could not occur before the sun existed to cause them. This indicates your willingness to ignore at least one inconvenient reality about the literal language of Genesis when you can’t provide a rational explanation.

Example: You also said, “It is not an issue for miraculous events that are said to occur in one rotation of the earth in relation to the light source or sun because Jesus also did miracles instantaneously.” Genesis does not literally say rotation – that was your hole filling invention. Soon after that you tried, “People would not have understood “rotation”.” With that you imply that the Bible made a mistake by not using the best word to communicate its intent! If it meant rotation, it should have and would have said rotation. But that is not the literal language it uses now is it.
Example: An assumption you clearly make, and one that is an invention, is that the six days of creation necessarily occurred on consecutive days. Genesis does not literally say that. The language Genesis uses does not even clearly imply that they were consecutive days. God could have waited several hundred million years in between each creative day. But it is however okay for you to go beyond the literal language of Genesis and either assume or deduce that consecutiveness is necessarily the case, all the while adding any data you need to fill in the holes to support your opinion, but it is not okay for us to go beyond the literal language of Genesis and make valid metaphorical/symbolic deductions or interpretations. That is hypocrisy, pure and simple. And those are just the examples I have for this one issue.
Fact – Genesis makes a statement that is factually wrong three times with the first 13 verses. One can either engage in gymnastics of circular logic to avoid that intellectually honest conclusion; or one can rationally conclude that those evenings and mornings were not literal evenings and mornings because they were not possible, and therefore they had some other metaphorical/symbolic meaning. Even the vast majority of Jewish Bible scholars don’t interpret Genesis literally and it is there book for crying out loud!
If you are going to deviate from the literal language of the Bible whenever it is convenient, then everyone can. For most of us it won’t be a matter of convenience, it will be a matter of being rational and consistent. Examples of hypocrisy about other issues will be coming soon.

Ben Stien also does not seem to realize that the “intelligentsia” often are self proclaimed. In reality, it is how others view you, ie how credible you are, that makes you a member.
A persons position in society if more heavily influenced by finances than anything else. A person who can afford to continue his or her education to a PHD is more educated than someone who could not afford it but can still be of questionable intelligence. The reverse is often true as well.
History shows us that a person with even the humblist of occupations can be a genius. For a good example of this I suggest the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, more than once, on various parts of the planet by simple hunter gatherers that proved to be not quite as simple as others.

I am the one that said that you cannot assume the speed of light has been constant. It is an assumption. If we are going to be scientific, we have to be scientific in our approach to science considering every possible variable. The Bible has proven us wrong before and it could prove us wrong again.
The biggest “variable” is when Adam and Eve sinned. That single event changed the course of history from being constant to continual diminishing. We don’t know what it was like before so we cannot say what it was like. We do have a record of what it was like and that is the ONLY thing that we have to go by. It is a lot better than guesstimating any day of the week.
The Bible says that we are diminishing and we are. The Bible says that we need redemption and we do. These are truths that people need to be facing. How can anyone say they are being scientific if they do not face these simple issues? Our reality needs to be founded on truth. When it is not, of course you will not be able to prove anything because your assumptions are off.
The Bible is all about facing the truth. If we do not face the truth, we cannot claim to be scientific.

PQQAm
Then logically the first day was a very very long day.

PQQAm – Amazing, I can’t even get to the other examples of hypocrisy before needing to deal with this one again.
*** “The point is that the text says that the (greater) light was made but it doesn’t say exactly when it was made however it is the first time the (reflective) moon is mentioned.”
Uh, wrong again. You really need to check your facts first. The text clearly states (as in explicitly, as in literally) when the greater light was made. It clearly states (as in explicitly, as in literally) when it was set in the dome of the sky. And it clearly states (as in explicitly, as in literally) when the lights began to mark the fixed times. The first three days could be any indeterminate length of time because the lights in the sky didn’t even begin marking the fixed times of days and years UNTIL THE FOURTH DAY.

PQQAm – “It does say that God had already separated the light from the dark which cannot be without the rotation of the earth in relation to a light source.”
Oh really, an omnipotent God cannot separate light from dark without causing the earth to rotate? If God has a limitation like that then wouldn’t that mean God is no longer omnipotent? Besides, rotation of the earth is not necessary to separate light from dark. It would be necessary to separate day from night. But that does not happen until the fourth day. At least according to what Genesis literally states.

BK, you keep assuming that what the Bible says is factually wrong and then you keep changing the definition of a day. Evening and morning is what it says. This definition of a day has not changed since the day that it was first spoken. I see no error in what the Bible said. There are no factually wrong statements in the Bible. It says what it says for a reason. We may not understand the reason but that does not mean that it is wrong. It is wrong to assume there is error there.
The devil is in the definition. What was said may not mean what we think it means but there is no error there. Besides, evening and morning is the definition of a day to this day. The light source had already been made since the first day. That is why we can determine there was a rotation of the earth since the very first day.
The rotation of the earth is not allegorical. It really does rotate and it really does make day and night in one 24 hour period. There is nothing allegorical about it.

Even IF the sun was not made until the fourth day (which I do not believe), the earth was still rotating in relation to the light source that was made on the first day the same as all the other days. There is no indication anywhere of any change.
The light source was made on the first day. The placement of everything in relation to each other came on the fourth day.

That was a little confusing.
The only room for time is between “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” AND “the earth was formless and void”. This may be where the time factor comes into play but as soon as there was light and evening and morning, the days had already been established.
(A very long time ago) when I first heard “the earth was formless and void”, my thoughts were, “for how long?”

Virtually the whole Universe (except for thing on the earth) was made before the first day. Light appeared on the first day and that is what determined the evening and the morning of the first day.

PQQAm – “BK, your assumption (your error) is that you believe there is error in the Bible instead of trying to understand what has been said.”
I am not assuming, I am using clear evidence, in this case explicit language, to form a logical conclusion. The only assumptions I make in this instance are that God did not write the books in the Bible and God did not dictate them. God inspired the authors to write what they knew and what they believed. Therefore (these are conclusions now) it is possible for imperfect human beings to have made errors of fact when they wrote the books of the Bible. What they wrote was moral truth and subjective truth because they sincerely believed what they wrote. But what they wrote was not necessarily 100% factually correct and is therefore not necessarily objective truth. Imperfect human beings can make errors of fact when they translate the Bible. Imperfect human beings can make errors of fact when they translate it again. And finally, imperfect human beings can make errors when we interpret it. It is also possible for copyists to make errors.
The next assumptions I make are dependent upon the previous assumptions and conclusions. The essential messages or lessons don’t have any errors within their content that effect how we are supposed to interpret them or the lessons we are meant to learn from them. The more important the message, the greater the accuracy. The less important the data is the less accurate it might be. Anything that cannot affect my salvation can be completely wrong and it won’t matter. Therefore (back to concluding again), any errors of fact are irrelevant to the moral lessons we are supposed to learn from the Bible. Any errors of fact are irrelevant to any important Biblical messages we are supposed to understand. Ultimately, any such errors of fact have absolutely zero impact on my faith. We can still learn what we need to learn in spite of any errors. However, they are important because they help to provide guidance toward the best ways to interpret the Bible. And maybe, just maybe, the only way to learn some of the things we are supposed to learn, and the only way to understand some of the things we are supposed to understand, is to be able to recognize and correctly interpret errors and inconsistencies.

PQQAm – “Quietman, logically, there is no reason for the rotation of the earth to speed up.”
If your understanding of physics were better you would know that the moon exerts gravitational drag on the earth which does effect how fast the earth rotates. The speed of rotation has been and is changing.
*** “Light appeared on the first day and that is what determined the evening and the morning of the first day.”
The only star that can cause or determine evenings and mornings here on earth is the sun. There was no sun the first three days. Therefore the literal language of evenings and mornings before the fourth day is factually wrong.

PQQAm – “The heavens and the earth were made before the first day. This includes the Sun and the stars even though the stars may not have “shined” until the fourth day.”
Yes, and no; mostly no. Earlier I quoted the entire fourth day, it’s like you have not read it. It is really quite clear. The heavens were made the first day, but the heavens are only the place where the stars will end up when God makes them and puts them in there place on the fourth day. Basically the heavens were made on the first day but they were empty. Genesis does not say anything about making the stars, sun, and moon, or making them shine, or setting them in their place until the fourth day.
The lights in the dome of the sky don’t begin “to separate day from night” or to “mark the fixed time, the days and the years” or “serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth” (vs 14 & 15) until the fourth day.
*** “The light (of the Sun) was already shining on the first day.”
NO. Genesis does not state that. Genesis does not identify the source of the light made on the first day. It does not even state that there was a source. It only says, “Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” That is all. No source. No sun. No stars. No moon. Only light. Practically speaking, it is only saying God made photons.
Now, some theologians interpret the light on the first day as being Jesus. In other words, God already existed as all three persons on that first day, but God’s person of Jesus was not yet in human form. Jesus’ mind and spirit existed but not his physical body. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this interpretation and I don’t have an objective reason or a valid subjective reason to dispute it.
*** “The definition of a day remains the same throughout the seven days.”
The definition of a day is still irrelevant and has never been an issue. Granted, I obviously don’t believe that Genesis is talking about six literal 24 hour days; especially the first one that didn’t even have a morning. And I have clearly stated that I don’t believe they were six consecutive days, especially because Genesis never states that they were consecutive. But I have never made an issue about the definition of a day because that is not necessary for my thesis or my argument. I agree with the Biblical scholars and theologians (in particular the Jewish ones) who hold that the days were symbolic not literal. Their purpose is to emphasize the importance the ancient Hebrews put on the Sabbath. The purpose of the creation story is to emphasize God’s omnipotence. Therefore the definition of a day does not matter.

The days were consecutive because God rested on the seventh (consecutive) day.

Another point to be made is that it was not the actual stars, sun or moon that was made on the fourth day but it was the “lights” that were made-to-be-seen on earth on the fourth day. That makes a whole lot more sense than anything that I have heard to date.

Quietman, believe it or not, I did see a website that said the sun revolves around the earth. I thought of you guys when I saw it. : )
Evolution was losing credibility even before this movie of Ben Stein that will be out this weekend. I can see that it will be harder for evolution to continue getting the free ride that it has been getting because it just does not have a scientific basis. Not only is evolution a religious belief, it is a baseless religious belief. It is a form of lunacy, if you ask me. It is the fairytale that evolutionists say belief in God is.

You guys are still in denial.
This Ben Stein movie tears “Darwinism” to shreds.
Re: PQQAm – “The days were consecutive because God rested on the seventh (consecutive) day.”
“Genesis does not state that.”
Genesis does not state that???
Genesis 2:2 NIV
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
Genesis 2:3 NIV
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Paradox?
1. something absurd or contradictory: a statement, proposition, or situation that seems to be absurd or contradictory, but in fact is or may be true.
“seems to be absurd or contradictory, but in fact is or may be true.”
That is a paradox especially when speaking of God’s word. It is not something you want to mess with unless you are feeling mightier and greater than God. Even then, I wouldn’t push it.
What you people don’t seem to realize is that evolution is an outright attack on God and His word.

PQQAm – “The days were consecutive because God rested on the seventh (consecutive) day.”
Are you trying to be obtuse or does it just come naturally? I have explained this before. Genesis does not state that the days were consecutive! Assuming they were consecutive is your invention. It is equally valid for me to interpret it as, “By the seventh day (of creation) God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day (of creation) he rested from all his work. If you can add “consecutive”, I can add “of creation.”
God could have waited several hundred million years in between each day or some days of engaging in a creative act. Maybe God needed the time to plan. Maybe God needed to wait for the creative acts of one day to completely take before things were ready for another day’s worth of creating. You know, like waiting for a cake to cool before putting the icing on it. Or like waiting a few days for muddy ground to dry up at a construction site before continuing with the construction. That logically fits with the literal language because it maintains the seven days of creation.
But insisting that they were consecutive days is a fabrication of data that goes beyond the literal language of Genesis. It might be reasonable, but it is not literal and it is not the only logically valid way to interpret it. At least my way allows for both the objective science and the Bible to be correct. Like St. Augustine said, when observation differs from interpretation of scripture, we need to change our interpretation of scripture to match what we observe.

If it was not consecutive days, the Bible text would have said that.
God let the cake cool on the seventh day after all the ingredients were added.
I did not add “consecutive”. God did that when He said, “first evening and morning, …second evening and morning, …third evening and morning, …fourth evening and morning, …fifth evening and morning, …sixth evening and morning and seventh day.”
You cannot change what God said.
Be genuine. If you do not believe what God said, just come out and say that you do not believe what God said. Don’t take it out on me. From my experience, I know that what God says is always true. Don’t believe what people tell you. There is a big difference between what people say and what God says.

It is consecutive and it becomes consecutive when referring to the rotation of the earth.
(Let there be light) 1st rotation (in relation to the light), 2nd rotation, 3rd rotation, (let there be lights) 4th rotation, 5th rotation, 6th rotation, 7th day.
It is written and it will never change.

God spoke in terms we could understand. Evening and morning is caused by the rotation of the earth. Now you are becoming very irrational. It would be easier for you to accept what is written in the text. It takes a lot of irrational belief to believe something other than what is written in the record.
Science was always my favorite subject in school. I always scored well on even the hardest tests. On one test in particular that was one of the hardest ever, I scored something like a B+ while everyone else in the class scored lower including the “smartest” person in the class. This teacher was like a college Professor and he refused to grade on a curve. I had two of these great Science teachers.
I always loved science and I love it even more today with the Ben Stein movie coming out this Friday and all. …the dinosaur descriptions found in the Bible. …the revelation of how God “made” the lights on the fourth day when they had already been made on the first day. I am very encouraged. I had a great English teacher too. I had a lot of great teachers and teachers of the Bible too.
Are you satisfied cturple?

The more that is given, the more is required. Just address the issues, honestly.
The Bible does *indicate* rotation because that is what happens when there is evening and morning. Who is bearing false witness and who is in need of a science class?
It says “there was light” that *indicates* light was already coming from the nearest light source, which the only light source ever mentioned is the Sun. So the Sun along with the rest of the “heavens” was made on or before the first day. It was NOT made on the fourth day because it was already in existence on the first day.
God did say “let there be lights” on the fourth day mentioning everything in the heavens (that was already created on the first day). God made each of the lights to be clearly seen on the fourth day. BTW, the Moon is not even a light but it is one of the lights that were seen on the earth on the fourth day.
There is also no indication anywhere of the evenings and the morning not being consecutive. (numbered rotations are usually consecutive). It is a bunch of nonsense that you are speaking.

PQQAm – Considering how you are totally unable to accurately remember any details or accurately quote Genesis, here is the entire fourth day again. Note that verse 16 clearly, explicitly, unequivocally, and literally says that the greater light (the sun) the lesser light (the moon) and the stars WERE MADE on the fourth day.
Gen 1:14, “Then God said: “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate the day time from the night. Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years, and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth.” And so it happened: 16God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars. 17God set them in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth, 18to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was. 19Evening came, and morning followed – the fourth day.
*** “You cannot change what God said.”
Why not, you change what the Bible says every time you need it to say something more than what the literal language states. I don’t change what God said, I interpret what God said to figure out rational meaning that ALSO fits with what we can observe.

Cloud cover is a lot easier than missing calendar days.
I know the Sun, moon and stars were “made” to be seen on the fourth day. The heavens and earth were ALSO “made” on the first day. Not only were they “made” they made “light” from the first day on. They can’t be “made” twice.

the bible clearly says that they were made twice. So now you’re saying that the bible is wrong? And while cloud cover might be “easier,” it isn’t in the bible – you made it up.

If it wasn’t cloud cover, it was flying monkeys that darkened the sky. It could have been almost anything because as long as there is an atmosphere, there can be almost anything in that atmosphere, things like clouds, dust and smoke.
There is such a thing as fill in the blanks IF there is a blank. There is no blank between the rotations of the earth but there is a BIG question mark on the fourth day of Creation. A little bit of cloud cover would make that “BIG” question mark vanish!
Geocentrism Egocentrism, it is all quite the same.
Faith in the truth is the ultimate objective of Science. That is what Theology is as well. If you watch Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled”, you will get a better idea of what truth is and what is true.
There is no separation of faith in the truth and Science. The goal of Science is truth. The goal of Theology or Bible study is truth. Both are searching for the same thing!

OK cturple, a book really has to earn the right to take up my time. Maybe you could explain to me in your own words whatever point they make. If not, I won’t waste my time and anything about evolution is too boring and it makes people have small brains so they do not consider other possibilities.
You should already know that if everything about God was put down in writing that the whole world could not contain the books. That is the reason God sent us His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, or didn’t you know that?
Because of the flood, things didn’t necessarily and more than likely did not end up where they originated from. Besides, these were large animals and who is to say they remained in one place? These animals were very large and we don’t know if they were good (for) eating. You still have to explain to me how they got in the Bible when they are supposed to have died out before anyone saw them.
Ben Stein is not a “scientist” and he is not the one that is being featured in the movie. All the people being featured ARE scientists. I would like to see a Darwinist scientist have the courage of Ben Stein and these scientists to speak the truth as they do regardless of what might happen to them. Darwinists are a bunch of cowards.
As a matter of fact, it takes a lot of courage to believe and teach historical facts that support the existence of God in this world because there are people just waiting to cut you off and cut you down. That’s OK because God takes care of us and that requires faith in the truth as well but you have to have the courage to make the first step and every step after that.

BK, the only thing is that physical truth has been affected by spiritual truth throughout history and there would be no physical truth without the spiritual truth. Everything was made when God spoke.

PQQAm – “BK, the only thing is that physical truth has been affected by spiritual truth throughout history and there would be no physical truth without the spiritual truth. Everything was made when God spoke.”
Irrelevant! They are still different kinds of truth. One is testable by applying valid scientific methodology, the others are not. Also…
Prove it! Prove your hypothesis!
Prove it with objective evidence from repeatable verifiable tests! If your statement has any validity, if it is relevant in any manner at all, then prove it with valid scientific methodology.
The Bible does not qualify as objective evidence. It is a reason to believe something, but it is not evidence. Opinion does not count as evidence either. Expert opinion qualifies as reliable subjective evidence, but opinion, even expert opinion, is not objective evidence.
You can’t prove anything with objective evidence, that is why what you speak of is not now and cannot ever be valid science. I don’t even think you really understand what objective evidence is. I also don’t think you really understand what a valid repeatable verifiable experiment is. I absolutely have no doubt that you lack the critical thinking skills and the ability to apply valid logic to even set up a valid experiment let alone to then reduce, analyze, and interpret objective data from legitimate experiments.
Now, if you were to advocate teaching the non-science stuff in non-science classes like religion and authentic philosophy classes, then I would be behind you 100%. My only conditions would be that: we first require every freshman in high school to take a semester of logic; and then require every sophomore to take a year of introduction to philosophy (basically the same freshman college course I had, but stretch it out to a year for the high school sophomores; and then the religion and philosophy classes for discussing ID and creationism would be electives.
Before we allow students to have fair, complete, and thorough discussions about complex topics we first need to make sure that they have the critical thinking skills necessary to engage in a rational discussion. So, any problem with teaching students the knowledge and critical thinking skills they need to engage in independent rational thought?

cturple, you have had plenty of chance to “prove” that evolution has any basis at all. Evolution simply has no basis at all and there is no proof of it anywhere.
Creation Science has thousands of years of history and even prophecies to support their claims and the things they say make a lot more sense and there is more logic by far in their claims.
Watch the movie that Ben Stein and the SCIENTISTS put together.

PQQAm, think about it this way, THAT IS TOTALLY IRRELEVANT! We can objectively test for the wind. We can take objective measures and see the wind with instrumentation that can see things our eyes cannot see. We get closer to the trees and grass to rule out all other possible causes for the motion.
Even if we can feel wind on our face at the same time we see branches moving in a tree two hundred yards away, that does not necessarily mean the wind we feel at our location is casing the movement at a different location. Maybe the cause of the movement is birds, or squirrels, or monkeys, or raccoons, or kids climbing, etc. etc. We can conduct objective, verifiable, repeatable tests to conclusively prove that the wind is or is not causing the movement.
You keep forgetting that I am not an atheist. I have heard that analogy before and understand it perfectly. It has no bearing on the issue! But remember that I am also intellectually honest and capable if independent rational thought. It is not possible to objectively test for the Holy Spirit as being the only possible cause of any specific effect. Every single effect you describe is totally subjective. And every single effect can be given a minimum of two causes. One is self delusion and the other is the Holy Spirit. It is never possible to objectively rule out every other potential cause except for the Holy Spirit. I am a believer, but at least I am intellectually honest enough to admit that issues of religious/spiritual faith are not matters for science because they are supernatural issues. By definition science is limited to the objective study of natural phenomenon.
Consider this reality. Only believers experience the effects of the Holy Spirit. Just try to conclusively and objectively prove that the Holy Spirit was indeed the only possible cause of those effects and not self delusion or mind over matter. If you manage to pull that off you will be the first person in history. Even with the very carefully documented and very rare medical miracle cures at places like Lourdes and Fatima that science cannot explain, it is not possible to prove that the Holy Spirit did it instead of it simply being a result of something science does not understand yet. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get the Catholic Church to officially rule that an event is miraculous? Even then they could be the result of something we do not understand yet. Maybe in another million years humans will evolve to the point where we routinely do things like that with our minds. Maybe those people cured themselves with their own mind because of some temporary fluke in their brain. Just because science can’t explain something today does not necessarily mean God does it. That is a matter of faith, not science.

We have proof of a trustworthy historical record that makes a lot more sense than evolution.

You’ve never studied evolution and you know nothing about it. Your statements are irrational.

PQQAm – “We have proof of a trustworthy historical record that makes a lot more sense than evolution.”
Your proof is only valid proof of its own existence, what it says, and the sincere beliefs of the authors. It is not objective proof for anything else beyond those things. It is also superbly trustworthy for the moral lessons it teaches.
Evolution makes plenty of sense to those of us with the rational intellectual capacity to understand it. And many of us believe both the Bible and evolution.
Evolution is God’s designed natural process to develop life. The Big Bang was God’s designed natural process for creating and developing the universe through the natural processes God designed, created, and began. God is the greatest scientist and engineer ever. Why do you need God to be a stupid micromanaging puppet master?

You guys have a problem and your “problem” is with what the Bible says.
If you don’t believe what the Bible says, just come out and say that you don’t believe it.
You need to realize that each “step” of evolution is impossible and millions of chance changes towards a “design” are needed just to make one creature slightly different. Do you actually believe that these impossible changes in design have been made every step of the way (for the better) and that these impossible odds will continue to be made on into the future? Face the reality. It never happened.

PQQAm – “Chance does not make DNA no matter how many billions of years you use.”
Prove it! If what you claim has a legitimate scientific basis, then produce objective data from repeatable verifiable experiments. In other words, prove your hypothesis with objective data.
*** “We have Creation all around us that points to an Intelligent Designer.”
Of course we do, and evolution is the natural process God designed and chose to use. Technically evolution does not rely on as much chance as you think it does because everything functions the way God programmed things to function. All of the processes develop life as God programmed them to develop life.

PQQAm – “Do you actually believe that these impossible changes in design have been made every step of the way (for the better) and that these impossible odds will continue to be made on into the future?”
Yes, of course. Any changes that are not for the better die out. So of course only the changes that are for the better stick around long enough to make a difference. Obviously the odds are not impossible because the process works. Way back at the beginning of this blog I even described two real world live contemporary examples (the white/black moths in Britain and bacteria) of evolution working.
*** “Face the reality. It never happened.”
Prove it with objective data.
You face the reality that you are merely engaging in a reflexive rejection of something you do not understand.

BK, evolution is not mathematically possible. The odds are just far too great. That is the proof that evolution is impossible millions of times over at that even if you had a creature to start out with (which you and evolution do not have, not without a Creator).
BK, if there are errors in the Bible, it means that the Bible is not dependable enough to trust in. There are no errors in the Bible because the Bible is God’s word. Our teaching is the only teaching in the world that is based on perfection. Without that perfection, we could not trust what God says and we would have no hope. We do have hope because of the perfection of God’s word.
“Evolution” can’t even acknowledge the fact that teeth grew after man sinned. How do you expect it to change one creature to another?
Remember that evolution is mathematically impossible millions of times over with regard to changing just one species into another just slightly different and you don’t even have that species to begin with! You seem to be having a mental block. It did not happen because it is impossible millions of times over and over and over again!

PQQAm – “BK, evolution is not mathematically possible.”
Prove it with objective evidence! Any chance greater than zero is sufficient for evolutionary processes to succeed as long as enough time is available. Your opinion alone is meaningless. Just because your mind is unable to handle such large numbers does not prove that evolution is not viable, it only proves you can’t understand it. I described two real examples previously.
If evolution is impossible then why are there antibiotic resistant bacteria alive today that did not exist a few decades ago? Not only are there bacteria that did not exist a few decades ago, they are resistant to antibiotics that did not exist a few decades ago. The new antibiotics were successful initially, but now some bacteria are resistant. Those antibiotic bacteria have an ability their ancestors did not possess. Therefore they are slightly more complex than their ancestors. They exist in a more complex form and possess a new ability because of evolutionary processes.
If evolution is impossible then why did a specific species of white moths in Britain become black only after a change in their environment? And then why did they change back to white when their environment changed again? Evolution, that is why.

Woops. I dropped an O, but I found it.
There is no 11th Commandment that states, Thou shall not think rationally. I submit it is sacrilege to not think rationally.

And we’re back to the fact that you have never studied evolution, you know nothing about evolutionary science, and every post you make shows that you do not understand it. Your pronouncements about it are ludicrous.
Where did corn come from? Please, enlighten us.

PQQAm – “Add to that the need for the DNA to have vision to see into the future in order to have some kind of direction.”
DNA doesn’t need vision. DNA doesn’t need direction. The environment decides what works well enough to survive and what doesn’t.
I am not an expert on this point, but if I had to guess I would guess that evolutionary processes are both reactive and proactive at the same time. That is probably why it works so well.
I am not an expert on this point, but if I had to guess I would guees that evolutionary processes are both reactive and proactive at the same time. That is probably why it works so well.

PQQAm – “…but there is no support at all for evolution, none at all. It is beyond impossible.”
Evolution has massive support; you just can’t understand it or except anything that might conflict with your myopic irrational belief system.
What is beyond impossible is for you to understand any valid science.

It is useless to say that I have not studied evolution or that I don’t understand it when you don’t explain or answer anything. If I have oversight, you need to show me where. If not, I will have to believe there is nothing valid in what you are saying.

PQQAm – “It is useless to say that I have not studied evolution or that I don’t understand it when you don’t explain or answer anything.”
It is useless to explain anything about evolution to you anymore. Many people have given you many explanations. You simply reject every one off hand. Many people have given you many pieces of evidence. You reject all of that off hand.
The evidence that you don’t understand any of it comes from the fact that you distort misquote everything. It also comes from the fact that every time someone has pointed out to you that you were repeating lies, propaganda, misinformation, and inaccuracies of any kind it never made a whit of difference because you would repeat the same nonsense again. You have never gotten one single detail of the theory correct. You cannot even keep simple definitions correct after pointing out your errors, and not only definitions dealing with evolution.
Reading propaganda does not constitute legitimate study of a topic. Repeating propaganda you hear does not constitute study.

BK, keep on convincing yourself so you keep on believing the things you say. Maybe, if you repeat it enough, it will come true, like wishing against all odds and hoping against hope. The lottery is a better bet and yet, I would never even play the lottery because winning the lottery is like getting consecutive numbers in their proper order which is nearly impossible so you can forget about evolution being the case.

PQQAm – Hey, all you have to do is come up with on single piece of objective data that supports anything you have said. Well, you would also need to form a coherent and logically valid argument. But try starting with one piece of objective empirical evidence. Or just once correctly explain anything about evolution to demonstrate any understanding.

PQQAm – “Historical evidence BK, accounts of what really happened. You can’t have science saying there was no dinosaurs when we have reasonable and reliable accounts of dinosaurs and dragons from all over the world.”
Historical records are only accounts of what people perceived and believed. They are in no way a reliable indicator about how accurate their perceptions and beliefs were. We have no way to know how their beliefs may have distorted their perceptions and thus what they recorded.
By your standard that historical evidence is automatically an accurate account of what really happened, then the Iliad and Odyssey are reliable indicators of how active the Greek Gods were in human affairs. Ditto for the mythologies of every other civilization. Does the fact that we have numerous historical accounts of werewolves, vampires, pixies, fairies, unicorns, giants, etc. etc. mean that they all really existed also?
Science says there were dinosaurs all over the place for a couple hundred million years. But the last ones died about 62-65 million years ago. They were probably killed by an asteroid impact in Central America, or that plus a lot of volcanic activity on the other side of the planet at the same time.
I guess you really meant the supposed Biblical references to dinosaurs in the Bible. Those are ridiculous interpretations of very vague descriptions. Those descriptions are like horoscope readings, anyone can see them for what ever they want them to be.
*** “History is a window that sees back in time.”
Now this is true. Unfortunately the window is not crystal clear. The best thing that window shows us is what people believed and how those beliefs influenced their behavior.

There are almost zero dinosaur fossils found anywhere in the world after the mass extinction event 65 million years ago. None, zero, zip, nada. We can find them before that event to about something like 220 million years ago when dinosaurs first appeared. Then nothing after 65M. There are a few exceptions for a few of their descendents that survived.
The reason the scientists are pretty certain that an asteroid is mostly responsible for killing off the dinosaurs is because there is a specific mineral (iridium) in the geological layer during the time the dinosaurs went extinct. That mineral is found in the same layer everyplace in the world. Dinosaurs below, essentially none above that layer. And that particular mineral is not native on planet earth. It is only found in asteroids and maybe comets. Plus they found the impact crater and the shocked quartz that indicates a massive impact. They have also identified someplace on the opposite side of the impact point where there was massive volcanic activity around the same time. The combination of their effects was overwhelming.
The reason some of the descriptions don’t match any animals is because sometimes they were not writing about an actual animal. Sometimes they were using the animals as a metaphor or symbol for other things or specific people. We have been over this before.

WHY HAS THERE NEVER BEEN A “SCIENTIST” WHO CAN EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THE “BIG BANG”? HMMMMMM?