....Bubba...thats funny...now my jaws hurt...dont run away...not that you were going anywhere...i love all of your alls posts....

Yowch! Same thing happened to my Mum. She had two brothers who earned post-graduate degrees, but was not allowed to attend high school herself.






Feel free to ask questions.

The theory that Lawrence Lerner and other materialists are really promoting, and which creationists oppose, is the idea that particles turned into people over time, without any need for an intelligent designer.
This ‘General Theory of Evolution’ (GTE) was defined by the evolutionist Kerkut as ‘the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.
However, many evolutionary propagandists are guilty of the deceitful practice of equivocation, that is, switching the meaning of a single word (evolution) part-way through an argument.
A common tactic is simply to produce examples of change over time, call this ‘evolution’, then imply that the GTE is thereby proven or even essential, and Creation disproven.
The main scientific objection to the GTE is not that changes occur through time, and neither is it about the size of the change (so we should discourage use of the terms micro- and macro-evolution in reasonable debate).

The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus).
Nothing in Lerner’s paper (or anywhere else) provides a single example of functional new information being added.
To claim that mere change proves information-increasing change can occur is like saying that because a merchant sells goods, he can sell them for a profit.
The origin of information is a major problem for the GTE
Equivocation must be exposed for what it is.
Once ‘bait-and-switch’ tactics by evolutionists are exposed, most of their ‘scientific’ case for the GTE collapses.

Lerner claims that evolution occupies a ‘central place’ and has a ‘unifying role’ in the life sciences.
However, since he has not defined ‘evolution’ properly, the claim is unsound.
Certainly, it is important (and trivially obvious) that things change, but what exactly would be lost from real science if the GTE were disbelieved?
Despite what many evolutionists claim, creationists are not the only ones whose belief systems affect their interpretation of the data.
Rather, both sides are biased.
Stephen Jay Gould and others have shown that Darwin’s purpose in promoting evolution was to find an alternative to the idea of a divine designer
Richard Dawkins applauds evolution because he claims that before Darwin it was impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, as he says he is.

Kansas State University immunologist Scott Todd asserted:
That is, never mind the facts — nature is all there is.
Naturalism is king!
So the opposition to creation has nothing to do with the facts, but with the fact that creationists refuse to play by the self-serving rules of the game formulated by materialists.
This contrasts with what most people might think,
e.g. double Noble laureate Linus Pauling:

I owe you my deepest apologies! I am truly sorry. I hit the "quote" button on the wrong post, and my response was meant for the post immediately previous to yours, the one by Stratrei.

I said earlier that you had the ideas essentially correct, and I meant that.

Again, truly sorry to have made a careless error which caused you offense.

Allen

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

The question is that we cannot speak with the certainty some seem to claim when in the transition from A to Z each intermediate stage must be viable enough to survive yet we only are able to observe A and Z. What happened to B through Y and why? (forgive the unintentional pun).

I have always said that, based on the principle of ex nihilo, the evidence points to the existence of a Creator though we may not know his/her/its properties. Commonalities between the fossils of sequential animals does not negate the presence of a creator just as similarities between the various models in an automobile manufacturer's line do not mean that there was not an originator of the lines.

That, at best, is recognized only as a hypothesis within scientific circles. "Evolution", therefore, is not by any means reflective of any need to believe in that. We simply do not know how life started and we probably never will.




"Evolution" merely implies change over time whereas new species may emerge, and that we know has and does happen. It does not imply how life originally may have started or whether there was any deity or deities involved.




[quote]The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus).

Since the process of the evolution of life on Earth took over 3 billion years, there's plenty of opportunity for genetic alterations. I don't know of a single geneticist who is not convinced that genes have and still do mutate, which can also have the effect of increasing or even decreasing the number of genes.





Darwin was a theist almost all his life, including when he wrote "Origin..." and "Descent...". Matter of fact, he was an ordained lay minister in the Anglican Church, and it was only in his older age that he seemingly got discouraged and became more agnostic.

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"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

It is certain that if any of the forms B through Y failed to survive there would be no Z. So, if we have an A and a Z every one of B through Y must have been viable.

That is simple enough logic that we don't actually need to see the forms between A and Z to know that the intermediates were viable. We know they must have been viable enough to mature, reproduce and have descendants. For if they were not, there would be no descendants---no Z.

That is not to say we are not anxious to find fossil intermediates to answer many other questions about them and about the transition. But the question of viability is not one of them.

And the presence of a creator does not negate evolution.

This is equivocation and switching of terms. The terms being switched here are "intelligent design" and "natural process".

Kerkut's description is of all living forms arising within the natural order by natural processes.

This neither asserts nor denies the possibility that this scenario involves intelligent design and/or a creator.

It is perfectly possible to believe in intelligent design and also accept the reality of a single origin of life from which all living forms have arisen by a natural process. In fact this is the position of ID spokesperson, Michael Behe and many other leading lights among ID proponents.

This can also be extended, hypothetically, to the origin of life from inorganic matter.


What creationism truly opposes is the non-miraculous origin of life, and of humanity. To uphold this position, creationists must assert that "natural processes exclude God." A very weird position for believers to take, as until the 20th century only materialists took that stance.

The long-standing tradtional Christian understanding is that God is the creator and sustainor of natural processes. Within that understanding, there is no contradiction between belief in a creator and acceptance of the scientific theory of evolution. The latter would be seen as falling within the natural order ordained by the Creator.


And why stop there? There are a number of species (plants, insects, etc.) that have genomes much larger than the human genome.

The idea that it is difficult to add genetic information is a creationist staple that is not supported by evidence.



Not really, since the RNA/DNA information system must have arisen during the formation of life. So it is more a question of pre-biotic chemistry than of biology.


No, it was to show that not every species was specifically designed and created to continue in existence without change. In fact, this view was welcomed by many Christian theologians as the Paleyian design argument is actually problematic for theology. As Darwin said in a letter to Asa Gray



Many Christian theologians of the time agreed with him. In fact, this whole essay by Gould on this subject is worth reading.



Which has nothing to do with the validity of the theory.



You see how quickly you have jumped from the fact that science deals with naturalistic, not miraculous, process to the conclusion that "nature is all there is." Todd did not assert that "nature is all there is" . He asserted that what is not naturalistic is excluded from science---not that it is excluded from reality.

That you drew this conclusion suggests that it is you who hold that "naturalistic" equates with "excluding God". That is the position of philosophical naturalism. Creationism accepts strange bedfellows in its so-called defence of a creator.