Feedback for January 1999

I have even spoken to individuals who have taken biology courses where the teacher unwittingly mischaracterized evolution as the great chain of being, and other such outmoded ideas.

I myself remember an extremely perfunctory one-day discussion of evolution in my high school life sciences class. I think most teachers don't bother to be well educated on the subject, because they don't plan on teaching much of it, in any depth, for fear of negative action against them.

God also said: "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food." And so it happened.

Although God specifically mentions giving the green plants for food, He says nothing about giving only the green plants for food. Moreover, there is evidence of carnivorous behavior in fossil remnants that many creationists consider "pre-Deluge," e.g., the dinosaurs.

Moreover, Genesis 9:3 states:

Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.

God here gives permission to Noah and his family to eat meat, but remains silent on the question of carnivorous behavior in animals.

Whether or not the ancients considered plants to be living, a global flood most certainly would have an effect on them. It would wipe them out.

Biblical quibbling aside, the primary point is that there is no physical evidence for a globe-spanning flood, and quite a bit of evidence against such an event. See the Flood Geology FAQs for more details.

To start the rebuttal, I'd recommend that folks examine the data which Snelling references. E.g., obtain Dalrymple's original study and compare the actual data to Snelling's misleading spin-doctoring job on the paper's contents. Dalrymple reported K and Ar analyses of 26 samples from lava flows observed in historic times. Of those 26, one contained obvious (upon visual inspection) mantle inclusions. Not a single one of the remaining twenty-five samples contained enough excess argon to interfere with long-term K-Ar assessments. For example, Snelling listed the Mt. Etna basalt from that study. When it is 60.0 million years old (younger than any mesozoic, paleozoic, or precambrian formation is today), it will give a K-Ar age of 60.3 million years -- an error of one-half of one percent due to initial argon. Dalrymple's study actually indicates that K-Ar dating is quite dependable for long-term isotopic age determinations, which is precisely the opposite of the the position that Snelling tried to use it to support.

Misleading claims aside, Snelling's approach is critically flawed in three ways:

1. First and foremost, the data do not support the position that he wishes to promote -- that all old isotopic results based on the decay of ⁴⁰K can simply be ignored as untrustworthy. The bulk of the data suggests that the methods are reliable (more detail below). Snelling can try to create the opposite impression with a slanted presentation of carefully hand-picked data, but even then (as noted above) the data that he picked out don't really support the position he wants to promote.
2. Further, if Snelling wishes to make a general case against ⁴⁰K isotope dating, it's not going to be done by dealing in laundry-lists of marginal cases, deliberate misapplications of the dating methods, and concentrating on the least reliable methodologies. Instead he should be trying to bring down the opposition's best evidence -- the most reliable methodologies (Ar-Ar in most cases), the samples which by all other tests appear the most suitable, the results whose interpretation isn't unclear. Snelling and other creationists never touch that data, perhaps because they know they don't have a case against it.
3. And, finally, even if Snelling succeeds with the first two items, his case is still only half-finished. It is fairly easy to make up excuses for ignoring the evidence, but that's apologetics rather than science. Snelling can't turn his own desired timescale into a legitimate alternative until he stops merely "explaining the evidence away" and begins to "explain the evidence." Snelling would have to show how the observed pattern of results is a necessary and expected consequence of the age and history of the Earth which he accepts.

   For example consider the Albian Stage, which sits roughly in the middle of the Cretaceous. It was identified in the 1840s -- more than a century before isotopic methods became widely utilized -- by distinctive fossil composition. The identification was performed by geologists who believed in fixity of species, decades before Darwin published Origin of Species. It cannot be argued that the age or position of the stage is driven by "evolutionary" concerns.

   Harland et al. (A Geologic Time Scale 1989, pp. 89-90) report more than 30 samples from several locations which (by stratigraphic position) were formed during the deposition of the Albian Stage. The number of samples for just that one stage is greater than the number of bad ages that Snelling produces. Unlike Snelling's list, these samples are ones which have the highest appearance of suitability -- for example, least evidence of weathering or later metamorphism, greatest concentration in the relevant isotopes. Several of the reported individual numbers are in reality the "aggregate" result of a suite of several samples and several measurements. The results are (values in millions of years, by K-Ar methodology except red which are Rb-Sr):

   95.00 ± 1.00	98.70 ± 2.50	100.00 ± 0.80	104.40 ± 0.75
   96.18 ± 3.11	98.90 ± 1.23	100.27 ± 3.00	105.36 ± 0.91
   96.18 ± 3.14	99.00 ± 1.12	100.60 ± 0.50	106.00 ± 0.50
   96.50 ± 1.35	99.24 ± 3.38	100.60 ± 2.50	107.45 ± 5.00
   97.50 ± 1.00	99.25 ± 1.39	100.62 ± 4.02	110.48 ± 3.87
   97.60 ± 0.48 2	99.40 ± 0.65	100.62 ± 4.00	114.76 ± 4.01
   97.60 ± 1.00	99.60 ± 2.50	102.57 ± 4.10	116.05 ± 1.24
   98.22 ± 2.00 1	99.70 ± 1.10	103.10 ± 0.95
   98.22 ± 3.22	99.72 ± 0.76 3	103.55 ± 4.00
   98.35 ± 1.16	99.77 ± 0.98	103.58 ± 0.72

   The correlations are even more significant than the above list indicates on its own. Formations sitting on top of Albian formations date to younger than 97Ma; formations sitting below Albian formations date to older than 110Ma. Not only do the list of best-sample Albian dates fall into a consistent range, that range is in agreement with the ranges of formations which were necessarily deposited before and after (by simple geological relationships that even Snelling would agree with).

   Why do these samples from all over the world -- identified by distinctive fossil composition -- consistently date to similar values by multiple isotopic methods?

   The mainstream scientists' answer is simple: the results consistently agree because the methods work, and because the Albian stage represents a span of roughly 15 million years of time, roughly 100 million years ago.

   But what is Snelling's answer to the same question? If the methods are as wildly unreliable as he would have us believe, and all Albian formations were deposited at most 6,000 years ago... why is there a consistent pattern of results agreeing on ages more than four orders of magnitude off?

   As an illustration, consider: We have volcanic sanidine and biotite from Montana and Wyoming which sit with late Albian fossils (marked ¹ above). These contain a range of concentrations of potassium, and yet give a series of almost-identical ages around 98 million years. We also have glauconite (a mineral that forms in clays where deposition is slow, often replacing fecal pellets, shells, and other objects) from Germany which sits with late Albian fossils (marked ² above). These contain a range of concentrations of potassium, and yet give a series of almost-identical ages around 98 million years. We also have glauconite from France which sits with late Albian fossils (marked ³ above). Multiple samples give Rb/Sr ages of 97 to 102 million years (each with about 3 million years uncertainty). Did each of these inherit "excess argon" (and excess ⁸⁷Sr) from a different mysterious, unnamed source? Did the samples with the most potassium "coincidentally" end up with the most excess argon so that the whole suite of ages would agree? Why do all of these far-flung groups of "fictitious, meaningless" ages agree on the same value -- and how did they each get buried with identical (but locally unique) fossil assemblages?

   Generic claims about excess argon do not explain the pattern of results. The young-Earth crowd doesn't have a sensible explanation for the results. Snelling knows this, which makes his obfuscation about K-Ar dating all the less excusable.

However, I have a comment about your statement: "it's just as much as article of faith to argue that the universe is a self-sustaining mechanism w/o the need for a God as it is that the universe was created and is sustained by God". Have you ever approached the question from an atheist position? If not, how would you know that involves faith? Faith (as in 'religious faith') is belief in something in the absence of evidence. As an atheist, I find that quesiton involves no faith at all.

The chasm which you refer to is not so much a product of the modern RC Church, but by other denominations...

You can tell your roommate that the American government will not educate you on creation either- because that is forced religion and against our wonderful constitution. So don't feel bad about your Chinese government- they're doing the right thing.

As for the so-called fossil, you should be highly skeptical.

1) These things can be easily faked. Carving fake fossils is a creationist home-handicraft industry.

2) Creationists often willfully mistake fossils for what they wish to see, as in the Palauxy River "man tracks".

3) Creationists are, for the most part, not scientific experts. Few of them have any scientific training at all. They present their case as a literal reading of biblical scripture. I doubt they could identify a dinosaur footprint if they tried, let alone a human footprint (see Palauxy man tracks).

4) If such claims were true, you would hear about it from qualified scientists working in the field, not just from people who have an opposing position based on non-scientific reasons.

As to the photo, I have never seen it, and doubt that it is genuine, if it exists at all.

Talk.origins does not advocate Flat Earthism. You apparently missed the big disclaimer at the top of the page.

Here is an interesting example of natural selection unintentionally driven by human actions

Scripps Howard News Service L O N D O N, Sept. 29 "Evolution is saving elephants in Africa by producing herds with tiny tusks or none at all" which provides no profit for poachers and thus ensures the survival of the species.

The phenomenon has been noticed in all parts of Africa where hunting has been going on longest, with both trophy hunters and poachers always shooting the elephants with the biggest tusks. A survey in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda in the 1930s showed that only 1 percent of adult elephants were without tusks. Then it was regarded as a rare mutation. This year Eve Abe, of the Ugandan wildlife authority, found that 30 percent of adult elephants in the same area were without tusks. Richard Barnwell, World Wide Fund for Nature conservation officer for Africa, said the trend towards elephants having smaller tusks or none had been noticed all over the savannah area of West Africa, where elephants had been hunted longest. "All the elephants with genes that produce big tusks have been taken out of the population. Those that remain either have small tusks or none at all."

Big Tuskers Becoming Rare

He said it was now rare to find a big tusker in Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger or Mali. Another attribute aiding elephant survival is bad temper. Elephants were hunted almost to extinction in South Africa at the turn of the last century. One small herd in what is now the Addo national park on the edge of the Indian Ocean survived, however. Barnwell said this was partly because these elephants were known to be very bad-tempered and did not have particularly large tusks. "Elephants are very intelligent and can be very dangerous if they are prone to bad temper. Hunters decided that trying to kill them was not worth the risk, so being bad-tempered is a survival technique too." Poaching in the Queen Elizabeth park reduced elephant numbers from 3,500 animals in 1963 to 200 in 1992. Now the population is 1,200 and is growing quickly. The difficulty of finding an elephant with large enough tusks is defeating commercial poaching.

Tusks May Still Have Uses

Lack of tusks is not all good news for elephants, however. Bulls fight for the right to mate with females, and in this respect large tusks are a big advantage. This is why bulls with big tusks developed in the first place. An additional advantage is that tusks are used as tools, particularly in the dry season for digging in river beds looking for water. Campbell said this did not particularly matter in the Queen Elizabeth national park because water was plentiful, but for the dry savannah elephants it could be crucial. In parts of central Africa, elephants are hunted for their value as meat, so even being without tusks is no help. He added: "The fact is that elephants with big tusks would come back if we stopped hunting them. Large tusks are an adaptation that took place to help survival. The message of all this is that we are forcing a change in elephants which is not necessarily to their advantage. If they are to survive, we need to look after them."

Your second point about the watch is very insightful and intelligent... as is the rest of your post.

As far as your final question, who knows? Here is my opinion:

The worst cases of crimes against Humanity- the Holocaust, the Persecution of the Native American Peoples, the Tyranny of the British in India and other parts of the World, the Slavery of Blacks in America- all had one re-occuring theme. In all cases, the oppressors thought that their victims were less than Human, unequal to themselves, and undeserving of the same rights. Religion, for all the good it does, was unable to prevent these tragedies, and in many cases supported and contributed to them.

Just maybe, if the perpretators of these crimes had been taught from childhood the truth of the Fact of Evolution, they might have realized that there are no 'inferior' species of Man; that we are all descended from the same ancestors, we all have the same DNA, we are all Homo Sapiens, and that we are all deserving of the same rights and priveleges.

Just maybe...

In terms of philosophy and logic, the assertion that "something must be eternal" is simply an unsupported assertion.

As for the common anti-evolutionary claim that there is no natural way for information to increase in a genome, it is simply false. I have provided an answer to this question before, and shown that the example given fits both Shannon-style definitions of information and a more casual usage of the term information. At this point, I'll have to ask, once again, that if the example supposedly does not represent an information increase, what definition of information is used to make that determination?

One can also read Richard Dawkins' response to this same question.

Wesley

The Moon "pulls" harder on the parts of the Earth closer to it than it pulls on the Earth as a whole -- because gravitational attraction is proportional to m/r2 and those nearer parts have a smaller value for "r" (distance from the Moon's center of mass). That difference in pull is roughly proportional to m/r3. Using units of Earth-masses (Moon = 0.012 E-m, Sun = 333,000 E-m) and gigameters (Earth-Moon = 0.384 Gm, Earth-Sun = 150 Gm), here is a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation:

• Gravitational attraction ([Sun-Earth]/[Moon-Earth]):
  ([333000/1502]/[0.012/0.3842]) = 180
  The Sun exerts about 180 times as much gravitational attraction as the Moon.
• Tidal gradient ([Sun-Earth]/[Moon-Earth]):
  ([333000/1503]/[0.012/0.3843]) = 0.46
  The Sun exerts just under one-half as much tidal influence as the Moon.

The distinction between "gravitational attraction" and "tidal gradient" explains the Moon's importance in tides, but it can not save Holden's argument. He claims that a massive Saturn was extremely close to the Earth; his model explicitly invokes immense tidal forces to create the "world mountain" and lower the "felt effect of gravity." Once he has demanded the Earth be subjected to a huge tidal gradient, he cannot magically excuse Earth's water from being subject to those very same forces.

Note that the Moon's tidal pull distorts the Earth's figure by a few centimeters, but results in water depth changes of almost ten times as much on average. The difference is due to the Earth being much more rigid than water. Tidal forces should always "pile up" a lot more water than land for that very reason. That is why the FAQ writer noted that Holden's "world mountain" would have been deep underwater.

One last thing: It would be an error to suggest that tides are "NOT" affected by the Sun. The "cycle of tides" is a direct result of the interplay of Solar and Lunar tides. Every two weeks (approximately) when the Sun and Moon are aligned, their tides add together and we experience "spring tides" which have the greatest difference between high and low tide. In between when the Sun and Moon are 90 degrees out of alignment, their tides cancel to an extent and we experience "neap tides" which have the smallest difference between high and low tide. This cycle would not exist if there were no Solar tides. This observation is also relevant to Holden's claims. The fact that we can see a similar cycle of tides preserved in billion-year-old fossils indicates that the Earth has had a Moon for a very long time, and suggests that it has not likely been in orbit around Saturn at any time in the recent past.

The basic gist of the explanation is that even a rudimentary light-collector provides some small benefit to organisms, who can thereby avoid predators and find prey just a bit more easily.

Actually, evolution represents a synthesis of many modern "hard" sciences. Creationism is a non-scientific attempt at supporting one particular religious sect's creation mythology with scientific-sounding terminology, but not by actually advancing any scientific theories, but by attacking evolution with tactics of confusion and deceipt. Their effort is aimed mainly at the public school system, which they detest for a couple of reasons: 1)teaching evolution 2)offering sex-education and 3)the elimination of forced prayer and religious teaching. (I know several fundamentalist extremists who would like to see the end of public school altogether).

The only class in which creationism should be taught is comparative religion, along with all the other creation myths- Hindu, Native American, etc. It is not, nor will it ever be, science. It begins with its conclusions already firmly established, and will not allow anything to disagree with biblical scripture.

If you have trouble fathoming the study of events that happened millions or billions of years ago, perhaps you should read further. Is paleontology to be doubted? Should archeology be thrown out? Is all of history suspect? There are real reasons behind the science of reconstructing the past.

My favorite analogy is forensic science. A man can murder someone (with no witnesses), and scientists can reconstruct the scene with such accuracy as to pinpoint the guilty person- with such accuracy as to cause that man to receive the death penalty. Evolution is much the same- reconstructing the past through examination of the evidence. Creationism does no such thing.

As far as bias, I think that scientists should have a bias against pseudoscience- at least they should be skeptical regarding claims that fall far outside known facts. Creationism has every chance in the world to prove to mainstream scientists that it isn't pseudoscience. It has yet to do so.

DISCLAIMER:

This article is not advocating flat-earth theory, nor is it attempting to show that most or even many creationists believe in a flat Earth. It simply illustrates that there are still real people who interpret the Bible so literally that they think Earth is flat. The Talk.Origins Archive does not support or endorse the views of the International Flat Earth Society. Clicking the "Feedback" button above sends feedback to the Talk.Origins Archive, not the International Flat Earth Society. Please do not send us feedback to tell us that the Earth is a sphere; we are already aware of this fact.

Note carefully the last sentence of that paragraph.

It is important to expose suspicious credentials, especially when these people claim to be experts in scientific fields. They confuse the public, and gain more credibility than they warrant. Many of these creationists have little or no scientific training. Most of their science comes from scripture, and they object to evolution for non-scientific reasons.

This web site isn't about the latter-day followers of the tenets of Mary Baker Eddy, so I don't really know what to say about that.

On the other hand, creation science certainly does partake of the oxymoronic character.

Wesley

I don't know what the "Pretorist" view is... it wasn't in my dictionary. But it doesn't matter anyway...

you didn't leave your email address.

According to their own understandings of the second law of thermodynamics, they can't provide scientific evidence or inference why their own hypotheses do not violate the second law.

The 2LoT is one of the biggest anti-evolutionist smokescreens, in my opinion. It is nothing. Birth does not violate the second law. Death does not, and neither does genetic variation. These three events are what cause evolution. It is a baseless objection- one they use to cause doubt and confusion in the non-scientific public. They're trying to sway the fence-sitters, as well as reassure their followers.

Claims regarding Thermodynamics must be made as mathematical expressions, not metaphors. To my knowlege, anti-ev's have not provided any mathematical calculations as to exactly why birth, death and genetic variation violate the second law of thermodynamics.

To me, it is the weakest of their arguments.

Scientific Creationism should in fact be re-named to Theological Objectionism, or Non-scientific Anti-evolutionism.

At the basis of all anti-evolution you will find, crouching behind scientific-sounding terminology, literal adherence to biblical scripture that will tolerate no interpretation.

I obtained my copy from the Dinosaur Nature Association at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, but it is also available from Pan Terra's Worldwide Museum of Natural History.

That said, I am glad to hear that your friends have been tolerant of your views, as I hope you've been tolerant of theirs. In a democratic society where information flows freely, it is crucial that people like you and your friends engage each other in open discussions without anger. Be persuasive, not argumentative. As the old saying goes, "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar."

I must point out to you for the sake of your science project that evolution is only about the origin of the diversity of life on Earth. It is not about the origins of life on Earth, or even the Earth itself; those are subjects of study for abiogenesis/molecular biology and astrophysics/cosmology, respectively. Learn what those sciences have to say, but more importantly, learn why they say them.

Keep searching for the truth, Megan, and recognize that the simple answers in life aren't always the correct ones.

The reason these other theories are not attacked as evolution is, quite obviously, that they do not threaten a particular theology.

Organisms do not intentionally grow 'new' body parts for survival purposes. Organisms do not evolve. Species evolve. Organisms remain as they are born. Organs do not have to be fully-functional as we know them in order to be useful. Body parts certainly do not 'pop up' in one or two generations. Organs may assume different functions over time, and each organ did not necessarily 'start from scratch'.

It sounds like you did not come across this FAQ on Abiogenesis.

I'm glad to see that you are aware of anti-evolution/creationism's flaws from a scientific perspective. But then, are you saying that creationism should stand as a valid science just because it has an invisible deity behind the scenes, ready to work out whatever insurmountable problems it has? That is exactly why creationism isn't science at all, but just a scientific-sounding version of your typical sunday morning sermon. Can't you see why the last place creationism should be pushed is into the science classroom? We don't need forced religion in our public schools.

This is America- people of course have the right to believe whatever they want. But when creationists throw their hat into the scientific ring, they're gonna get beat up! Creationism should be kept where it belongs- in churches, private schools and in the homes of those who believe it.

Your last comment sounds like that you're suggesting that just because something is complex and difficult to understand, we should write it off as the act of a "divine being" who can do anything.

Those aren't flaws in evolution, they are flaws in your understanding of biology. Your questions illustrate that you have done no investigating on the subject for yourself (or didn't pay attention during high school biology class). I suggest that you browse the FAQS on this website, and find out the answers. They're all right here.

This is such a common problem, in my opinion: people are used to sound-byte (or bible verse) bits of information that they can digest without having to think about the information. Yes, understanding evolution and science will take some effort on your part. Is it worth it? Absolutely. The mind is like a muscle- the more you use it the stronger it gets.

You should also read the God and Evolution FAQ to see how your religion can coexist with science.

Daniel Dennett does not force his views on anyone. If you do not like what he has to say, you may simply put down his book. If you do not like what I say, then click the back button on your browser. Some of us have a curiosity and a need to know our origins, and find beauty and wonder in the granduer of the natural world.

Once again we have the erroneous claim that darwinism or atheism is responsible for the holocaust....

1)

2)

1) Daniel Dennett does not force his views on anyone. If you do not like what he has to say, you may simply put down his book. If you do not like what I say, then click the back button on your browser. Some of us have a curiosity and want to know our origins, and find beauty and wonder in the granduer of the natural world.

Once again we have the erroneous claim that evolution/darwinism/atheism is responsible for the Holocaust. This is just not the case. Here are some quotations from Hitler himself from his autobiography, Mein Kampf:

a)"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

b)"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison."

Of course there is much, much more. Here is a good source of information. But I realize it will take a long time before this erroneous belief dies away.

2) If you can't see the difference, I hope you don't move into my town. Here are a few differences for you to consider.

a)Humans have REASON, and know that what they are stealing does not belong to them- they did not earn it and do not deserve it.

b) a wolf stealing a carcass does so as a survival measure. Humans, in most cases, do not steal to eat. There are alternate methods of getting food. If a human has to steal to eat, then I say let them steal it (rather than starve).

c) Humans have EMPATHY, and can imagine the feeling of loss in the true owner of the property.

d) Animals are not capable of being moral or immoral. These are purely human labels. Animals do only that which they need to do for survival. Humans steal and kill for pleasure and profit (something that has no parallel in the natural world), and they have done so and will continue to do so, regardless of the prevailing theology. For thousands of years people have rejected the idea that we are "all animals", and yet they still stole and murdered.

Accepting Evolution does not mean you have to abandon morals and act like an animal.

First, anyone who thinks macroevolution means "rocks to humans" has rocks in their skull, and anyone who voices this idea is trying to deceive the gullible. (I've seen Creationist Kent Hovind use this one in his presentation). You're right- the statement "rocks to humans" is obviously false (it's a straw man argument, in fact), but since "rocks to humans" is not an example of macroevolution, it does NOTHING to dispel the idea of macroevolution. It simply makes the speaker look ignorant. Macroevolution is the cumulative effect of many microevolutionary changes, and it is a fact.

Second, the notion that microevolution is "restricted to a few trivial cases at the single-celled level" is incorrect, and whoever says it needs a education in biology. What you have described above as "normal changes due to genetic reproduction" is Recombination, not Mutation. These are only two of the five processes that are involved in evolution. (No wonder they can't understand it!)

The description you gave is NOT what I'd call evolution. If that is what your anti-evolutionist people are calling evolution, then they are pathetically under-informed, and you should tell them so. There are two processes that decrease genetic information (Genetic Drift and Natural Selection), and there are three processes which increase genetic information (Mutation, Recombination and Gene Flow). Until your anti-evolutionists can address all of these processes, they should probably keep their mouths shut. You can find out much more about each of these processes by clicking the search button and typing in one of the terms. You should also read up on observed speciation.

Hope this helps.

Sometimes, part of understanding what something is involves understanding what it isn't. A good deal of confusion results when members of the public use definitions of evolution that aren't the same as the ones biologists are using.

If the reader wishes a more complete discussion of evolution, may I suggest that the reader examine other files on this site, including Chris Colby's Introduction to Evolutionary Biology?

Obviously, 50 million years is WAY out of line with current understandings of human evolution. BUT, 1842 is prior to the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, so there really weren't any "evolutionists" as we think of them today who could estimate any dates. Certainly, if someone found a skull in some strata in 1842, it is unlikely that they would be thinking in terms of hominid ancestors. Lastly, the technology to date strata did not exist in 1842.

This question is very much like a common creationist confusion tactic: throwing up a vague, unverifiable statement to cause doubt among the fence-sitters.

Biologists are sometimes guilty of casual use of the word "evolution". Dr. Moran mentions that biologists sometimes differ on the precise wording of a definition.

However, if pressed to give a clear technical definition of the word, I think that you will find that most biologists broadly agree with the concepts as reviewed and commented upon by Dr. Moran.

Is casual usage of "evolution" wrong? I would say that such usage should be deprecated, much like the use of "goto" in programming languages. If a more specific concept is meant, then a phrase that renders that specificity accurately would be preferred.

Dr. Moran's current email address can be obtained through the web page of his department.

Wesley

It's also like all the colors of the rainbow... Deep red on one side, then all shades of orange, yellow, different varieties of green, all sorts of blues, and purple on the other side. You want to be shown that red turns into purple, but you won't allow any of the subtle changes in between. The changes ARE as small as the "new varieties" that you speak of. That IS the process. (I think you might be in denial).

Do you think lungs just "popped up" in an individual fish?? The mechanism for new genetic information is mutations. Imagine (if you have an imagination) that a freshwater fish had a mutation which allowed the lining inside its esophagus to absorb oxygen directly. None of the other fish would have had this trait. Maybe for hundreds of generations this trait was passed on without any real benefit, but as a neutral trait. Then the oxygen became depleted in the lake in which this fish lived. The fish discovered that it could swim up to the surface of the water and get a gulp of air. (This is EXACTLY what the LUNGFISH does today). Now there is selective pressure to evolve a proper lung. With the fish spending time near the surface, it skimmed the shallows for food. To assist this, bony fins that can be used for propulsion would be extremely useful, such as in the mudskipper. When it evolved, it was inevitable that the fish would use it's ability to go up on shore to exploit an untapped food resource. Then came amphibians, with moist skins who still had to lay their eggs in water... and so on. Impossible in a human lifetime- even in the whole history of human life. But it's not impossible in, say, 50 million years. This is just a hypothetical, but possible, scenario that I came up with off the top of my head, and I'm not a professional scientist. The alternative-- mud-man and rib-woman, is totally unscientific and unbelievable.

You're like a man walking through a forest of giant sequoia trees. You look at the giant trees, and see a few tiny saplings, and say "You can't show me how these little two-foot high saplings can turn into these 300 foot giant trees!" No one has witness the process from seed to full grown giant redwood! It takes time.

You also apparently need to read this on Abiogenesis, or click the seach button.

As for sex, try this link: Sexual reproduction. One thing is important to understand. We cannot say how such things DID evolve, because they left no physical trace. We can suggest how such things MIGHT HAVE evolved (and be confident that we have a high degree of accuracy), based on the physical evidence we do have, and on biological processes that are well known, and by what is suggested from living species. But there is nothing wrong with that- it doesn't change the fact that it happened. That's the way historical sciences work.

The things you say are being "swept under the carpet" are just the things you haven't taken the time to properly research. The answers are out there. To look at a creationist website or book that says "evolutionists are sweeping the molecular origin of life under the carpet" and stop there is only serving your apriori bias. You can't stop at their uninformed propaganda- it simply isn't good enough.

Your first point- if you really study scientific materials, you will learn that evolution is indeed as much a fact as gravity, and it is not a philosophy. Philosophies are not constructed from physical evidence and experimentation, but science is! If by "new discoveries" you mean the creationist mis-information that you sited, you are, well, mis-informed. The examples you listed are, in my opinion, not worth commenting on here. Did you come up with all those questions yourself, or did you, as I suspect, get fed them by creationist literature? You can find the answers for them by typing in search words- if you are really interested in finding the answers. Click Browse and explore the FAQS.

But, from what I gather from your second point (and your last sentence), you are more interested in giving answers than receiving them. Your second point is really your more important point, I think-- evolution is at variance with scripture, invalidates the idea of Original Sin, undermines the idea that we are all totally depraved sinners, and eliminates the need for Jesus and Salvation. When you said: "If you can convince people that sin doesn't exist then people see no reason to turn to Jesus for forgiveness", you really summed up the fear of all creationists. You also object to evolution not because it is bad science, but because you think it would make you feel less special. (Aren't those contradictory positions? You are totally depraved, but hey, you're so special!)

Do you think that is reason enough that scientists abandon the search for our origins? (Obviously so). But that's not good enough, Ken. You have to provide hard evidence as to why evolution is not true... not that you just can't believe it. Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates have yet to provide ANY evidence that disproves evolution. This site is full of rebuttals to creationist's ridiculous claims. You also have to come up with a viable, scientific alternative to evolution. Creationists have been unable to do so... all they can do is quote scripture. We're looking for science here.

Are you aware that not everyone is Christian, or belongs to your particular sect of Christianity? If your goal is to "undo the damage" done by evolution, and to convince people that the bible is not a myth, you have not even begun to start. How is looking at scientific evidence "in the light of the bible" different from looking at it in any other light? Are you suggesting that the conclusions should be influenced by biblical faith? Shame on you. Facts are facts, regardless of your beliefs.