What are the empirical data to which evolutionary religions submit?
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Thank God For Evolution, Facts Are God’s Native Tongue: “Evolutionary religion’s alternative to reliance on ancient scriptures is empirical data. In a way, the data are our scriptures— and to these we submit”.
71 Responses
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Ausktribosphenos nyktos is the oldest mammal yet found in Australia. This fossil’s death occurred about 115 million years ago. Gondwana, during the Triassic about 200 million years ago, was the place where marsupials first appeared. Prior to this find in 1999, scientists believed that terrestrial mammals were thought not to have entered Australia until about 5 million years ago, long after that continent had broken free of Gondwana. By then it had drifted close enough to Southeast Asia for island-hopping rodents to finally reach it.
http://dinosaurdreaming.monash.edu/inverloc/jaw/press.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana
These empirical data have caused a problem for the theory of evolution. Are mammals the ancestors of marsupials in Australia? Is it possible that marsupials replaced placentals in Australia and then evolved a second time into the placentals of 5 million years ago? Can scientists really tell if a fossil had a uterus and placenta just by looking at jaw bones and teeth? Maybe there is something wrong with the theory that continents can move around to satisfy the empirical data of evolution?
Jerry A Coyne in “Why Evolution is True”, pages 88-89, says that nearly all of Australia’s mammals are marsupials while placental mammals dominate the rest of the world. He says that the roots of biogeography lie deep in religion. How did kangaroos and giant earthworms get off Noah’s Ark at Mt. Ararat in Turkey and touch land in Australia?
He says on pages 94-95 that the earliest marsupial fossils, about 80 million years old, are found in North America. As marsupials evolved they spread southward to the tip of South America about 40 million years ago. Marsupials made it to Australia about 30 million years ago and began diversifying into the two hundred species that live there today. How did they cross the South Atlantic? It didn’t exist yet. At the time of the marsupial invasion, South America and Australia and Antarctica were part of Gondwana.
This is where the pareidolia comes in. The oldest marsupial fossil is found in China and is about 125 million years old.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1215_031215_oldestmarsupial.html
The “oldest” marsupial fossils to which Coyne refers is fossil marsupial teeth. When you go to Antarctica looking for marsupial fossils and all you find is teeth, they must be marsupial teeth.
These are the best examples of pareidolia and apophenia so far in my quest for empirical data.
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Loren, thank you, that’s pretty much what i was asking.
Charles, you do understand that the Japanese researcher’s published work was published by himself, and was a fine example of scientific humor. and the Nobel was a “parody”, not an actual “Nobel”.
i’m still not seeing the complete breakdown of the theory of evolution here.
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Josh, Why do you ask? The Ig Nobel Prize = ignoble prize. Whenever I try to point to something, there is always someone who looks at my finger instead of what I try to illustrate?
There is NO COMPLETE BREAKDOWN of the Theory of Evolution. It all makes for a nice mythology. Please continue to believe and to have faith in whatever you choose.
There is simply no empirical data that makes the theory into a fact. And, to make matters worse, there are authors like Jerry A Coyne who know that the mythology is not factual.
Do you have any ideas why some authors continue to deceive their readers? Is it because of the money they receive for research grants?
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Charles, I get the feeling that the main point you want to make is this:
There isn’t enough evidence about our origins at this time to say with any degree of confidence how we actually got here. Therefore, the best position to take is to say we just don’t know yet know how humanity came into existence.
Does that summarize your position correctly? If so, would taking your position have any impact on any aspect of one’s daily life, spiritual or otherwise?
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Loren, Thank you for asking. No, that does NOT summarize my “position”.
TGFE promised us something new: Facts are God’s native tongue. After millennia of creation myths, there is now an alternative to religion’s reliance on ancient scriptures. We were told that scientists have published empirical data about the The Theory of Evolution. We were led to believe that we can thank God for what has been learned. There is no reason to doubt any more. We can submit; we can surrender; we can consent to abide by the authority of scientists. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/submit
Here are some creation myths: http://www.livescience.com/history/top10_intelligent_designs.html
None of these creation myths give us enough facts to answer the question: How did life begin on earth and how can we explain the existence of 100 million species?
There are many scientists working to find answers to specific questions. One is Jerry A Coyne who has done good research on fruit flies. The Drosophila reproduce quickly and his coworkers can observe mutations. After many generations, the fruit flies have mutated into organisms that are very different from the original couple. However, he is still working with fruit flies— not some new kind of creature.
However, because of pareidolia (the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the viewer) he can look at those fruit flies and see evolution. He was so inspired that he wrote his book, “Why Evolution is True”. He knows that the evolution mythology is not factual. I have already pointed to the links with empirical data.
But did he receive an Ig Nobel Prize? No, other scientists agreed with him. Each and every one of them have their research projects. Each and every one are victims of pareidolia and apophenia. Each can see parts of a gigantic evolution puzzle in their work.
The scientific method should be something like: Make an observation. Ask a question. Form a hypothesis. Conduct an experiment. Accept the hypothesis or maybe reject the hypothesis or maybe modify the hypothesis.
Each scientist uses the scientific method on their particular research. When one tries to put all of the research together into a single theory of biological evolution, one ends up with conflicting conclusions. And we know that all scientists DO NOT AGREE on one theory. If they did, they would publish it.
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Loren, you ask: “Would taking your position have any impact on any aspect of one’s daily life, spiritual or otherwise?
I certainly would not thank God for another creation myth. Please do not take my word for anything. Maybe I suffer from pareidolia and apophenia, too. All that I have proven here is that scientists do not agree on one theory. Anyone who publishes a book like “Why Evolution is True” is only publishing a myth. However, if anyone wants to believe in a myth, that is OK.
My daily life includes Internet research on EVERYTHING that I can think of, including science. I like reading viewpoints that are thought provocative. Spiritually, I am not changed by these research tasks. I am still a Bible student and I believe that the ancient writers got it right the first time. There are many facts that cannot be found in the Bible— such as “Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons as shown in all religious paintings?”
Why would such a “dumb question” be asked? The belly button exists because we are placental mammals. The Bible suggests that they were “born” as adults. Anyone who wants to opine for one side or the other of the question, please go ahead. Opinions are like belly buttons; everybody has one.
Since the Bible was written, others have either rejected it entirely or have “cherry picked” what they liked or disliked in order to create their own religion. If someone wants to believe what evangelists say about religion, that is OK. However, much of what is taught by evangelists is NOT found in the Bible.
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The direction of evolution is from water to land to water?
This is the pectoral fin of Tiktaalik, Shubin, et al., Nature, 440, 6 April 2006, “The pectoral fin of Tiktaalik roseae and the origin of the tetrapod limb”, page 770 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7085/full/440747a.html
This is the pectoral fin of an orca (killer whale), http://www.buschgardens.org/infobooks/KillerWhale/physchkw.html#pectoral
http://www.flickr.com/photos/orcagirl/7962515/
http://www.aarluk.com/en/bio/files/bone.htm
Tiktaalik’s fin bones look like they could be transitional between a fish and a killer whale. Why don’t evolutionists see the similarity? Because it doesn’t fit their existing model. Fish did not evolve directly into whales.
They believe fish fins evolved into land animal legs, and those legs evolved back into fins. Tiktaalik looks a whole lot more like a whale than Ichthyostega, but that doesn’t matter because it doesn’t fit the evolutionists’ pre-conceived notion.
If evolutionists believed that fish evolved into whales, then evolutionists would say Tiktaalik is a perfect example of a transitional fossil between fish and mammals. If it can be made to be evidence for either transition, then it is evidence for neither.
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happy birthday Darwin!!!
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Rock Formations
http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v8i8f.htm
Science Against Evolution is a California Public Benefit Corporation whose objective is to make the general public aware that the theory of evolution is not consistent with physical evidence and is no longer a respectable theory describing the origin and diversity of life.
All rocks are the same age. Why do we keep talking about the different “ages of rocks”? If you have accurately dated one rock, why date another?
The one thing that evolutionists and creationists agree upon is that all rocks are the same age. Neither group claims that minerals have been popping into existence out of nothing from time to time. All the atoms in the rocks have been in existence since “the beginning.” The only argument is whether or not the beginning of heavy elements happened when a star exploded billions of years ago, or when they were spoken into existence thousands of years ago.
The confusion comes from the fact that the age of a rock formation isn’t the same as the age of the rock that makes up that formation. Unfortunately we (and just about everyone else) tend to be imprecise and use the term “age of the rock” when we really mean “age of the rock formation.”
Certainly the magma that came out of Mount St. Helens in the 1980’s existed since the beginning. But the ash layers and the small lava domes it produced were formed on different dates. What scientists seek to do is to determine the date upon which a rock took its current form as an ash layer or lava dome. They want to do this because they know that things under them are older than the formation, and things above them are younger than the formation. This allows them to date things between the layers.
Please read the paragraphs about Sedimentary Rock, Volcanic Rocks, Dating Ginger Ale, and Dating Lava. When you get to Rubidium-Strontium Isochron Dating, you will see that the isochron method tells us nothing about the “age of the rock formation”.
Coal is the only kind of rock that was ever alive. Evolutionists believe that coal was formed 363 million years ago. Carbon 14 decays so rapidly that it is all gone in 30,000 to 50,000 years.
However, coal samples throughout the world still contain carbon 14. The amount found suggests that the life on earth is thousands of years old, not millions.
What Jerry A Coyne said on pages 23-25 of “Why Evolution Is True” about radiometric dating is misleading readers to believe something that is not true.
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Rock Formations
http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v8i8f.htm
Science Against Evolution is a California Public Benefit Corporation whose objective is to make the general public aware that the theory of evolution is not consistent with physical evidence and is no longer a respectable theory describing the origin and diversity of life.
All rocks are the same age. Why do we keep talking about the different “ages of rocks”? If you have accurately dated one rock, why date another?
The one thing that evolutionists and creationists agree upon is that all rocks are the same age. Neither group claims that minerals have been popping into existence out of nothing from time to time. All the atoms in the rocks have been in existence since “the beginning.” The only argument is whether or not the beginning of heavy elements happened when a star exploded billions of years ago, or when they were spoken into existence thousands of years ago.
The confusion comes from the fact that the age of a rock formation isn’t the same as the age of the rock that makes up that formation. Unfortunately we (and just about everyone else) tend to be imprecise and use the term “age of the rock” when we really mean “age of the rock formation.”
Certainly the magma that came out of Mount St. Helens in the 1980’s existed since the beginning. But the ash layers and the small lava domes it produced were formed on different dates. What scientists seek to do is to determine the date upon which a rock took its current form as an ash layer or lava dome. They want to do this because they know that things under them are older than the formation, and things above them are younger than the formation. This allows them to date things between the layers.
Please read the paragraphs about Sedimentary Rock, Volcanic Rocks, Dating Ginger Ale, and Dating Lava. When you get to Rubidium-Strontium Isochron Dating, you will see that the isochron method tells us nothing about the “age of the rock formation”.
Coal is the only kind of rock that was ever alive. Evolutionists believe that coal was formed 363 million years ago. Carbon 14 decays so rapidly that it is all gone in 30,000 to 50,000 years.
However, coal samples throughout the world still contain carbon 14. The amount found suggests that the life on earth is thousands of years old, not millions.
What Jerry A Coyne said on pages 23-25 of “Why Evolution Is True” about radiometric dating is misleading readers to believe something that is not true.
What about Fibonacci numbers and nature?http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hosted-sites/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html Does this empirical data remind you of Intelligent Design or does it remind you of the theory of evolution?
Your answer tells you about your interpretation of something that is known to you. You know about math; you know about animals and plants. That is pareidolia.