That should be fun indeed...it is amazing to me how they simplify everthing. lol....cant' wait to see the "debunking" :smt021

:smt102

I like the emotocons too :smt023

Here's the first installment, it turned out to be a lot longer than I had planned, but I kind of got on a roll :twisted:

First let me start off by saying that I?m certainly no cosmologist, but I think you?ll find that it certainly doesn?t take a Stephen Hawking to refute the intellectually devoid horror that is fishdontwalk.com.

Let?s dive right in on the creationist?s assault on the Big Bang:

http://fishdontwalk.com/aviewer.asp?i=7

Right off the bat, things have gone horribly wrong. The Big Bang theory is not a secular explanation at all, it is a scientific one ? and there most assuredly is a difference. The theory itself originated back in 1927 when a Catholic monk named Georges Lema?tre independently derived a set of equations (now known as the Friedmann-Lema?tre-Robertson-Walker equations) from Einstein?s theory of general relativity. These equations coupled with observations of the recession of spiral nebulae led Lema?tre to theorize that the Universe began as a point or ?primevial atom?.

So like it or not, the first to propose such a thing was a theist, a Catholic monk no less. Obviously Lema?tre didn?t think his proposal conflicted with his belief in God, unlike certain fundamentalists who insist upon placing scriptural limits on their God?s creation.

In the end, unless one wants to say that physics, mathematics and telescopes are strictly and solely for the secularists or atheists; one ought to rethink how they couch the theory and science in general.

Shockingly, it is correct that Hoyle coined the phrase ?Big Bang?; what isn?t shocking is that the author of this piece doesn?t seem to understand or even care why proponents of the theory take some issue with the term. The Big Bang, as it is currently uderstood, was not an explosion, but a rapid expansion from an enormously hot and dense point. This expansion agrees with the Friedmann-Lema?tre-Robertson-Walker model of general relativity and our empirical observations, which we?ll get into a bit later.

Actually, current figures put it closer to 13.7 billion years ago, and we aren?t talking about a ?clump? of mass-energy floating around in space. First, space or more accurately space-time as we understand it and know it today weren?t manifest yet, and this ?clump? contained all of the matter-energy (not matter and energy ? the two are equivalent) in the entire universe. The rest of the author?s description is grossly simplified and generic, but accurate enough.

Oh, and btw, stars and planets are spherical (though not perfect spheres ? they spin and therefore bulge in the center) due to gravity, and anyone with a high school education ought to know this (watch as this fundamental lack of understanding continues to play out in the rest of the author?s arguments). Hell, anyone with common sense ought to know this. Imagine building a skyscraper miles high ? what do you think is going to happen? Eventually the building will be crushed under its own weight and pulled toward the center of mass of the planet ? this is what makes planets and stars spherical on a much larger scale. Smaller objects like boulders, houses and pebbles can be irregularly shaped, because the mechanical strength of the material is sufficient to overcome the force of gravity ? this is not the case for massive objects.

So finally, we cut to the chase. How sad that the best a theist or creationist can typically do is cry, ?Well, your beliefs are just as much faith based as mine!?, then cross their arms in a huff and think they?ve won some point. When your best argument is that others share faith similar to the faith you are so confident in and proud of, you must know you?re fighting a losing battle.

Suffice it to say though, there is nothing miraculous, faith-based or even convoluted about the Big Bang theory.

And again, I find it ridiculously disingenuous to paint the Big Bang as an atheist theory or something that only atheists believe. The fact of the matter is the entire Catholic Church is officially on board with the theory, as are a multitude of people from other faiths. Only fundamentalists, typically Christians, seem to have a real problem with it in this day and age.

Actually, you?ve got things reversed. It is theists who insist upon a creation ex nihlo, from literally nothing. Are you now positing that God didn?t create the universe from nothing, that He didn?t simply say ?Let there be Light? and make it so, or that God Himself must have had a creator? No, I think not. The theist position IS one of creation ex nihlo, an atheist wouldn?t be caught dead believing something that foolish.
What baffles me, is that you?ve actually answered your own question here, and are simply too thick to realize it. You?ve simply projected your own problems onto the atheist, which is sadly typical.

Atheists are very well aware of the first law of thermodynamics, and it is this very concept that makes what theists propose, a creation ex nihlo, ridiculous.

Creation ex nihlo is a classic failure of human perception.

No painting comes to exist without a painter, no building is built without an architect, etc. Seems logical enough, but do these people create from literally nothing or is it more accurate to say they assemble existing materials? For no painter starts with nothing - they start with blank canvass and paint. No builder starts with nothing, they start with brick, mortar and blueprints. Something never comes from literally nothing.

Looking at things from the perspective of a First Cause argument, which theists are quite fond of, for something to exercise influence on the universe this causal agent must have already existed. Something nonexistent can't serve as a causal agent; thus causality must assume existence. Theists arguing for a creation of the universe ex nihlo, however have their logic backward - that existence assumes causation.

What the atheist can offer is a scientific explanation that meshes with conventional logic.

If we take matter-energy to be eternal, uncaused - as our best science seems to suggest (see the first law again), then existence is simply axiomatic. The universe just is, and the Big Bang becomes more or less a transitional event. The universe as we know it began with the Big Bang, but the matter-energy was always there, it must have been - to say otherwise turns all of physics as we understand it on its head.

We know that matter-energy is conserved - always, in every instance we have ever observed or theorized about. It is but a simple and very reasonable extrapolation to then say that matter-energy has always been, and it is empirically evident. There is no need to postulate a creator or a creation ex nihlo.

Not only does science point to existence being axiomatic, but simple logic does as well, because ?nothing? is an incoherent concept. ?Nothing? is not lack, not empty, not the void, not darkness, not the absence of anything, because the absence of anything would still be something. So again, the concept of creation from literally nothing makes no sense, because ?nothing? quite literally cannot exist.

In the end, the theist is reduced to demanding to know why there is something rather than nothing ? but this too begs the question, because it presumes that nothing or non-existence ought to be the natural state of things. This is like presuming the sky is supposed to be green and then citing the fact that it is blue as evidence for a Creator.

A scientist does not ask "why is there something rather than nothing", but rather "why SHOULDN'T there be something rather than nothing". There isn't anything about the universe that suggests it shouldn't be here and be exactly as we observe it be.

All of that aside, current quantum theories may in fact have room for our universe coming from what would be perceptually (not literally) nothing. Such theories included the universe arising from a quantum vacuum fluctuation that propagated itself, proposed by Ed Tyron in the early 1970s and a variation upon this proposed by Alex Vilenkin in the 80s that was dubbed quantum tunneling.

The most lucid theory going at the moment was proposed by Stephen Hawking and James Hartle, and is often dubbed the ?no boundary proposal?. Their view provides a description of the universe in its entirety, viewed as a self-contained entity, with no reference to anything that might have come before it ? pretty much what I?ve laid out above. For Hawking, this description is timeless, for as one looks at earlier and earlier times, they find that the universe is not eternal, but has no creation event either. Instead, at times of the order of Planck time (10-43 seconds), our classical understanding of space-time is reduced to quantum soup. In Hawking's exact words:

?The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.' The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.? - A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 136.

Whew. We?re just getting warmed up here.

This is just plain ridiculous, and again all too familiar.

The Big Bang most certainly does not violate the second law of thermodynamics either, nor does evolution (I never get tired of hearing that one). Theists and creationists would do themselves a gigantic favor to stop pontificating on subjects they clearly have no understanding of.

First of all, entropy is not a measure of order or disorder, per se, nor does it stipulate that ordered systems are not possible, even for a closed system.

Let me assure you that what follows is greatly simplified, but I wanted to take a look at the actual energy states of the universe, pre and post Big Bang.

The total mass-energy of the universe is constant (1st law of thermodynamics). Entropy is a spread in the distribution of energy over quantum states (from a quantum standpoint) or phase space (from a classical standpoint) over time. In more basic terms, entropy is a measure of the "quality" of heat or available energy. It is essentially the thermodynamic principle that gives us equilibrium and states that systems tend to move toward equilibrium - i.e. a hot or cold object tends to reach the temperature of the environment it is in. (Note that while in general systems move toward equilibrium, it is still possible to move away from equilibrium at points within the system where there are energy gradients).

The only cosmological implication I can think of that results directly from the 2nd Law is the theory of the "heat death" of our universe - that once our universe reaches equilibrium it will be cold, dark and desolate (if there is not enough dark matter in the universe to halt its expansion and quantum fluctuations don't become large players, that is).

The theory goes that once the universe reaches maximum entropy that there will be no more free energy to sustain motion or life and the temperature of the universe would be around absolute zero. It is important to realize what "heat death" means here - we are talking about maximum entropy for a given state and temperature. It is very possible and indeed many theorize that before the universe began its current expansion that it was also at "heat death" - albeit at a different, state and temperature. We are not necessarily talking about temperature, but free energy - the amount of work that can be extracted from a system
If the system is at maximum entropy it is at equilibrium for that particular state by definition. Change the state (temperature, pressure, volume, etc) and you move away from equilibrium.

Now for some math and thermodynamics, brace yourselves:
Free energy is the amount of work that a system can do - you can think of it as the amount of useful energy in the system; energy that can cause motion, or heat things up. There are two kinds of free energy - Helmholtz and Gibbs.

Gibbs free energy is defined as:

G = H - TS

where G is the Gibb's energy, H is enthalpy*, T is temperature and S entropy.

Any natural process will occur spontaneously if and only if the associated change in G for the system is negative. This means that, a system reaches equilibrium when the associated change in G for the system is zero (ΔG = zero), and no spontaneous process will occur if the change in G is positive (ΔG > 0).

*-enthalpy is heat content.

Helmholtz free energy is defined as:

A = U-TS

where A is the Helmholtz energy, U is the internal energy of the system, T is the temperature and S is entropy.

The total work performed on a system at constant temperature in a reversible process is equal to the change in Helmholtz free energy.

Now, let's do some math.

(In the below <= and >= will be greater than or equal too and less than or equal to. dX will be the partial derivative of the property X.)

The second law states that in a closed system, equilibrium is reached when entropy is maximized:

dS >= dQ/dT

Now, let's examine "heat death". Let's say for simplicity?s sake that prior to the universe expanding, it was at a constant temperature and volume.

A little algebra allows us to write the 2nd law as:

dQ - TdS = 0

One can combine the 1st and 2nd laws in a well known equation (I'll derive this if you are really interested, but it should be well known to people in engineering and physics fields):

dU = TdS - pdV

substituting in the Helmholtz equation:

dA = dQ - TdS - pdV - SdT

If the universe were at constant temperature and volume (say prior to the big bang) we get:

dA(T,V) = dQ - TdS <= 0

So at constant T and V the Helmholtz free energy will seek a minimum - this means that for a spontaneous process to occur the net change in free energy must be zero (equilibrium) or decrease (not yet at equilibrium). Alternatively, one could expand the system and reduce the temperature - and this is what we think happened and is happening now.

So now we have an expanding, cooling system. Similarly we can substitute the Gibb's equation and get:

dG(T,P) = dQ - TdS <=0

This means that as our universe cools and expands to a constant temperature the Gibbs energy seeks a minimum. For a spontaneous process to occur the change in Gibbs energy must be negative (if not yet at equilibrium) or zero (if at equilibrium).

In the two cases I've described - two states of the universe, there would be no free energy available to do work and the system would be essentially static.

That the universe will reach another state of heat death depends on whether or not there is enough dark matter-energy in the universe to halt its expansion. Why the universe began to expand in the first place is a bit of a mystery, but ample empirical evidence tells us that this expansion did indeed occur.
So no, ?disorderly? helium and hydrogen didn?t form the stars, for these gases certainly aren?t what one could ever call disorderly from an entropic point of view. Helium and hydrogen did condense as the universe began to cool, and were coalesced into stars by gravitational forces between the molecules.

I marvel at how a person who doesn?t even know why planets and stars are spherical can presume to now pontificate on the laws of gravity.

Like I alluded to above, it is a bit of a mystery why the universe began to expand, but that expansion is certainly not a violation of any physical laws, especially gravity. This probably boils down to you erroneously seeing the Big Bang as an actual explosion; you?ve made it clear that you refuse to learn why people who actually understand the theory don?t see it as such in your first paragraph. The energy for this expansion didn?t come from anywhere, it was already there. The singularity the universe we know today originated from contained exactly the same amount of matter-energy it does now.

A simple quantum perturbation could have upset the equilibrium of the proto-universe and set it off on an expansion as I have previously described. We also see what may be an analogous situation and a violation of the ?laws of gravity according to theists? in black holes, which emit Hawking radiation in the form of x-rays and photons ? yes, black holes slowly evaporate, even with all that gravity holding them together.

The point is, even if it is a mystery why the universe began to inflate, it doesn?t change the fact that we have obscene amounts of empirical observations that tell us this is exactly what has happened, and the mere existence of a mystery certainly does not lend any sort of credence to one?s case for a deity. That we don?t know something, means only that we don?t know ? nothing more. Mysteries aren?t a problem for science, rather, science thrives on mysteries. If we already had all the answers, there would be no reason to explore any further.

I can?t believe I?ve rambled on this long without sharing some of the evidence we have for the Big Bang, so allow me to indulge myself:

We have empirical evidence like cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) which pervades the observable universe. This CMB was predicted as a result of Big Bang theory, it is a remnant of the very young and VERY hot infant universe and was first observed in 1965 by radio-astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who shared the Noble for their discovery.

Then there is the fact that galaxies are moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distance. This is called Hubble's Law, named after Edwin Hubble who discovered this phenomenon in 1929. This observation supports the expansion of the universe and suggests that the universe was once compacted.

Then there?s a little thing called Olber?s Paradox, which is why the night sky isn?t filled totally with starlight and as bright as the sun. The only plausible explanations for this are that distant stars are red-shifted into obscurity because they are traveling away from us at enormous speeds, or that the light from very distant stars hasn?t reached us yet. Both explanations support the inflationary Big Bang model of the universe.

Then there?s the homogeneity and isotropy of the observed universe ? gobs of data showing that our location in the universe is not special or central and that the universe looks the same in all directions ? more support for the Big Bang.

And there?s time dilation in supernovae light curves! This was a direct prediction of the inflationary Big Bang model and has been directly observed several times.

Just read the two links above myself today, at least I learned something from responding to this gibberish.

We?ve already been over this. What, exactly, is the ?law of physics? that would prevent this, anyway? Planet and star formation is a well documented and well understood concept, and as I?ve already explained, the formation is caused by gravity ? not a miracle.

We can see the formation of stars today in nebulae throughout the universe.

Stars are born in gas clouds like the Eagle Nebula. It is here that dense clouds of gas coalesce and collapse under their own gravity to form a rotating ball. As more and more material is gathered due to the growing gravitational mass of the proto-star, the temperature and pressure and speed of rotation increases. This is very simple high school level physics. Eventually, the central core of this dense cloud of gas and dust will become a star, and the surrounding disk of dust on the central axis may further coalesce into planets.

The star once formed will persist so long as the star maintains its internal pressure against its own gravity, this is done by the nuclear fusion of light elements into heavier ones. When the star runs out of fuel, depending on its solar mass it will either swell into a red giant and then shrink to a white dwarf while ejecting it?s planetary nebula, like for instance the Cat?s Eye nebula, or go supernova, ejecting it?s heavy elements into the universe.

These are well understood concepts, and there is nothing miraculous about them.

As a side note, I?d like to say that I love it when creationists and theists drone on and on about the ?laws of science?, as if they controlled our universe. A physical law or a scientific law is simply a human description of how the universe consistently behaves. Human descriptions based on human observations. Because of this they are open to refinement or outright rebuttal as new observations are made.

IDers and creationist like to ignore this fact, and claim that such laws actually govern or control the universe - for example saying that the laws of chemistry control atomic and molecular interactions, or prevent this or that. Utter bollocks. This is like saying that a reporter covering a political election controls the election's outcome by writing the story. It is ridiculous to think that the laws of science, which are accounts of human observation, control the phenomena and observations they are derived from.

Sorry, but science does not require faith. It takes no faith to believe in gravity or in well understood and documented aspects of our universe which are based on sound reasoning and empirical evidence. Oh, and notice again that the best a theist can ever hope to do is denigrate reasonable positions by attempting to bring those positions down to their own faith based position. You aren?t going to win any battles or converts by crying, ?Well, your beliefs are just as ridiculous and as much faith based as mine!? ? especially when that simply isn?t true.

Also, be sure not to miss the thinly veiled threat as to where one puts their so called faith. Classic!

I highly recommend that you save yourself $15.95, and simply head over to the Rational Response Squad. Reason won?t cost you a cent.

FABULOUS....

I would like to add as a biologist a simple point about conservation of matter-energy.

DNA is also very conserved. There are genes out there that reoccur through out nature. The simple building blocks of life and amino acids and protens. This is plain evidence of evolution. Even DNA itslef is exactly the same in every living thing..... so are proteins, sugars, etc..all the same..of course a theist could say that this is what god used to make things, however, that would in a sense contradict a "miracle" theory that god created out of nothing.

Bravo, yellow number 5.....

:smt062 it is obvious you're a hell bound secular scientist. lol :smt096

I just got off the phone with the creator of "Fishdontwalk.com." He will be coming on our show to debate these issues. He may even step onto the message boards, we'll see.

BTW: Great job Mike.

BTW, thanks for all the kind responses guys

I'm looking forward to talking to the fishdontwalk guy. Hopefully I can get a few more response like this one done before then.

Hey guys, wanna win a prize for crushing irrationality?

What I've started here isn't over by a long shot, in fact, if any of you science minded infidels out there would like to give me a hand and take a fishdontwalk article or two under your wing I would really appreciate it. Hopefully, you would even be willing to lay out what you've written and appear on our program! We'll make you famous!

It is standard that simple creationist questions require meticulous and detailed refutation, and this is why many of us fail to put up arguments - it requires a great deal of effort and knowledge. As such it is hard for one man to do it alone, and any help your heathens can offer would be greatly welcomed. Rest assured, I will do it on my own if I have to, but there are subjects on apologetics and non-science things that I would love help on. I'd love help on the science stuff too. Cosmology and and geology are not my forte, and the more expert a refutation, the better.

The RR Squad courtesy of Brian Flemming, or me, Yellow, out of my own pocket personally, will send a copy of the Brian Flemming's "The God Who Wasn't There" to the first of you with a kick ass detailed and complete response to any of the articles on fishdontwalk's board (In other words, you need something similar to what is posted above). I'd prefer it be in an a non-biology/evolution area, as these are ducks on the pond for me, but if that is your area of expertise, feel free to pull the trigger.

Also guys, I understand that this fishdontwalk article is floating around the web. I personally would like to keep my responses on the down-low for the time being until we interview the authors. However, this is posted in a public forum and if must post my response to it, please give credit to me and the RR Squad, also please let us know how it goes over, I'm genuinely curious

In rationality,

Yellow

Thanks, I_laugh

It is especially interesting that he seems to know why the moon is a sphere here and not why stars and planets are in the article I addressed

I'm going to recommend that you get a copy of the TGWWT, and if we're out of promo copies, well I'll take care of that myself.

If you PM or email me a shipping address, I'll take care of that ASAP.

Thanks, again, I do apprieciate the help.

Thanks, as soon as the lucky winner contacts me I'll give it to you

I also offered one to BobSpence for a refutation he just PMed me over at IG, but I'll take care of that one out of pocket. Or, since I already have his address, we can send it to him and I'll take care of I_laugh myself. Either way, but keep in mind Bob is an Aussie, so shipping will be a bit more.

I'll also post his reply here shortly.

BTW, guys, I've been quite busy this week, so I don't know if I'll be able to do another installment myself till next week, so please be patient.

Do you debunkers care to increase your level of torture?

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/answers.html

I should have got into the habit of reading this topic regularly - I just posted my own response to the Moon article in the Science forum.

Should we be co-ordinating our debunks thru this thread, to avoid too much duplicated effort?

Yellow, I mentioned to Bob that we might want him to join us when we talk with fishdontwalkman on the air.

Just keeping everyone informed.

Just a thought - that topic I started on the First Law - could we change the topic title to just the Laws of Thermodynamics, so we can cover the 2nd law there as well? They are obviously closely related.

Just did some more reworking of the second law post to clarify it and make a more explicit statement as to why it doesn't prohibit abiogenesis and evolution.

I still intend to go into the complexity implications in more depth in another post, but what I have there should still be useful in attacking the 'violation of the second law of thermodynamics' crap.

Please do.

We record a segment with fishdontwalk.com owner this Saturday.

Debunking Creationism? A favorite hobby of mine. We all know they like to say that evolution is just a theory (just like gravity), the only problem is that they tend to repeat things after you demonstrate they are wrong.

I am listening to the fishdontwalk.com episode right now (thanks for that youth scholarship!). I love these types of shows the most, because Creationism/Evolution is so fun to discuss.

I think a better way to quickly beat Bill's "car from Seattle" analogy would have been to state that the car's motion involves conscious decision making. Choices that one could not possibly predict, and that no one can rightfully say would involve choosing a straight path, over any other. The expansion of the universe, on the other hand, involves physical laws that do not magically change. Physical laws do not choose to cause space to expand, or contract, based on whim. Laws are laws, and do not change.

Also, I noticed that you were trying to do this throughout: but Bill kept asking about what happened before the Big Bang. I think it would have been most helpful to state that without a Unified Theory of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, one cannot know anything about the era "prior" to Planck Time, so making claims about what happened then is pointless.

I didn't follow Bill's thought on the Thermodynamical laws. I think Bob Spence also did an excellent job of clarifying things, and also in regards to the need for a unified theory.

It is logical and proven not only phylogenically and systematically but also genetically. Undisputed. The facts are there.

How do you prove that dinosaurs have reached the "standard" structure of all higher vertebrates, who ever said dinosaur are "higher" vertebrates, and also, how do you define your standard. Your argument is making many many assumptions here, which if cleared, would probably not need an explanation. Plus, I would like to mention that your arguemtn also fails to recognize other domains, such as the prokaryotic bacteria and even single celled eukaryotes which make up not only the kingdom of plants, fungi and animals, but also the one of single celled organisms called protists. Also, insects, let's not forget a fly's eye, man...have you ever seen it? The traits of evolution and the conservation of genes can be seen throught all domains and kingdoms. The basic structures cells with slight modifications can be seen, but these modifications can also be very different.

There is no such thing as a standard optimal structure, only what works because of selective pressures whcih are haracterized by environmental stressors. For example, an infectious organism (protist, bacteria, or virus) endemic to an area may through time (hundreds of thousands of years) evolve to bind to certain proteins, say on your blood cells that right there is putting selective pressure on the host to change it's protein structure ever so slightly so that that infectious agent will not recognize that protein and essentially rendering the host immune to that specific pathogen. I can show this to you by the way. This is the same mechanism that causes antibiotic resistan bacteria... selective pressures-------->Natural Selection.

Selective pressures guide evolution. Many species have died because they had evolved to be adapted to certain temperatures, etc...and when the earth changed they died. The conservation of genes is seen as proof that not all species (such as dinosaurs) have died off completely. So it is absolutely wrong to assume that the standard optimal structure was reached during the "dinosaurs" time, whcih by the way were talking about a time period of hundred of millions of years. The world is ever changing and we can see the process of evolution through selective pressures, especially in bacteria and single celled organisms on a much faster level. Because they are simpler (and I use that term loosely).

Another example look at the evolution fo animals in the deep trenches of the ocean. This whole ecosystem has evolved using chemotrophy as opposed to photosynthesis the basis of life everwhere the sun reaches. There is no way life stopped evolving at the "dinosaurs" age. That is an absolutely wrong assumption.

Random mutations that if fit right will be passed on. Because it is a law of evolution that if something works it needs not fixing. Random mutations occur all the time, some are harmful some not, but accumulating random mutations over time, the ones that work will be the ones to survive and be passed on. THe ones that don't work will die out. Random mutations over million of years..and million of years to come.

Wrong, you have to look at the big picture here, you are being shorsighted, these animals have evolved from a common ancestors, however the phylogenetic tree is vast. It is not a simple ladder, it is a tree, and the genes that fit best survive. this process takes millions of years to occur. the genes that have accumulated through time, and have proven to work, are conserved. Animals are the same, yet differnet becasue of the environmental stressors they have evolved and are still evolving in, it is not something that happenes over night, but why do you think there is such biodiversity (fungi, insects, fish invertebrates etc...that all share the same 22 amino acids, yet are so different?) Evolution both shows similariteis and adaptation. Your vision is very shortsighted. Which is not surprising, it is obvious you have very little understanding of biological principles.

Your own question is the answer. Evolution uses the same basic principles and changes them as needed due to selective stressors, this is why you don't see a fish out of water, or a human wiht a long neck.
However you will see a fish with eyes as well as a human, even though the eye are very differently adapted. THis is also why you see a pineal eye on lizards (kind of like a third eye) I won't get in to that one though....I'll go on forever, my other specialty is ecology and herpetology.

Let me remind you of your own cells in your body (immune cells) that eat through phagocytosis. Or let me remind you of filter feeding invertebrates, or butterflies that eat through a proboscis. Not all animals breath oxygen, and certainly plants do not. And these similarites are varied. Look at the difference between a reptilian 3 chambered heart and a mamallian 4 chambered heart, efficiency has increased evolutionarily. however for the metabolic processes of a reptile a 3 chambered heart is good enough. Again evolution showing both conservation yet modifications. Again, your knowledge of biology is limited.

There is no need for 6 lungs, no need for 3 brains or four hearts. no half-dogs because reproduction maintains a constancy and change is slow. You can't mate a dog with an alligator, the sperm would not recognize the egg..it is a very slooooooooow process, that's what you're not understanding. It is littel tiny steps that have occured throughout hundreds of millions of years and will continute through another hundred of millions of years...

preservation of fundamentals as explained above has been shown to have tiny steps of modifications, slowly changing that preserved state.

THIS IS THE FALLACY OF YOUR ARGUMENT, THERE IS NO CREATOR BECASUE THE OPTIMAL STANDARD IS NON EXISTENT. Put a human in the middle of the ocean, if he's optimal, he would have no problem surviving more than 48 hours. I would like to see god's work there. If your god is so optimal in design, let me ask you about cancer, oh and autoimmune diseases such as lupus etc.. If your idea of a standard of humans and animals is so optimal, because of your creator, describe to me WHY cancer is so prevalent not only in humans but in animals as well. Also, why do we need to shit or piss? If god created humans would you not think he would create a knee with a much better design, the knee is a horribly "designed" joint...look at how easily it is injured. There is no optimal...my friend..your logic and science are being obstructed by the unabashed desire that you are not a meaningless being. Yet no one ever said humans are not meaningless...we have evolved to be so different and unique and special much like all the other species of plants and animals that have evolved to be unique and special Wake up my friend....get educated...then and only then you will see.

hope this was satisfactory.

I have an evangical baptist friend, and when i tried telling her about all the various homos from before humans, she had this to retort.

Friend - I believe that god planted these bones to help us test our faith.

Me - But what about the carbon dating and the various other methods to determine how long ago they lived?

Friend - God can make new things seem old.

Now, as you can see she is a new-earth believer. HOW do i show her that these bones are in fact real, and can be tested properly to show that in fact that these are our ancestors?

P.S. recent poll by popular science magazine 55% of americans believe that humans were created in their present form in the past 10,000 years.

Matt

People that resort to God put it there to test our faith, are irrational and ignorant. I don't think you can ever change her mind because they refuse to open their minds. This is how powerful religion has become. They are zombies infected with a virus.

Excellent post Yellow.

Whatever cosmological theory one might review, they all hold that the big bang was not a creation account, but a transition. Even Tryon's theory holds that 'something' existed prior to the vacuum fluctutation. In fact, both Brane theory and Tryon's idea rely on vacuum energy.

The great irony here is that every fundamentalist complaint about the big bang is a projection of their own flaws: they are the one who hold to ex nihilo creation (something literally from nothing, as the supernatural has no positive attributes). Every other complaint they lodge is either based on their ignorance of cosmology, or the fact that the confuse inductive uncertainty for a positive reason to doubt something.

The most galling part of the post you reviewed, however, came at the very end, when the fundamentalist suggested another fundamentalist reading material. If the writer had any intellectual honesty at all, he would not have sheparded his readers to yet another fundamentalist source, he would have sent them to the library.

I want to use some of what you wrote for my site if I may....

how can there be different colored people all over the world if we didnt adapt to our enviormentsit strangley seems to have correlation with the amount of sun.
for example:
europe=less sun=white man
africa=lots of sun=Black people
the list goes on

they never address these quotes. instead they cant argue and label them non-existant

like thesePassages that refer to the "Four Corners Of The Earth," can be found in:
Acts 10:11, Revelation 7:1, Revelation 20:8

Passages that refer to the "Ends Of The Earth" can be found in:
Deuteronomy 28:49, Deuteronomy 33:17, 1 Samuel 2:10, Job 28:24, Job 37:3, Psalm 2:8, Psalm 22:27, Psalm 46:9, Psalm 48:10, Psalm 59:13, Psalm 61:2, Psalm 65:5, Psalm 67:7, Psalm 72:8, Psalm 98:3, Psalm 135:7, Proverbs 17:24, Proverbs 30:4, Isaiah 5:26, Isaiah 24:16, Isaiah 40:28, Isaiah 41:5, Isaiah 41:9, Isaiah 42:10, Isaiah 43:6, Isaiah 45:22, Isaiah 48:20, Isaiah 49:6, Isaiah 52:10, Isaiah 62:11, Jeremiah 6:22, Jeremiah 10:13, Jeremiah 16:19, Jeremiah 25:31, Jeremiah 25:32, Jeremiah 31:8, Jeremiah 50:41, Jeremiah 51:16, Daniel 4:11, Micah 5:4, Mark 13:27, Luke 11:31, Acts 1:8, Acts 13:47

Passages that refer to the "Ends Of The World" can be found in:
Psalm 19:4, Romans 10:18

Passages that refer to the "Foundations of the Earth" can be found in:
Deuteronomy 32:22, Samuel 2:8, Samuel 22:16, Psalm 18:15, Psalm 82:5, Psalm 102:25, Psalm 104:5, Proverbs 3:19, Proverbs 8:29, Isaiah 24:18, Isaiah 48:13, Isaiah 51:13, Isaiah 51:16, Jeremiah 31:37, Amos 9:6, Micah 6:2, Zechariah 12:1, Hebrews 1:10

Passages that refer to the "Earth's pillars" can be found in:
Job 9:6 "He shakes the Earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble."
Psalm 75:3 "When the Earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm."

Passages that refer to the "Face of the Earth," defined as the most prominent surface of an object can be found in:
Genesis 1:29, Genesis 6:7, Genesis 7:4, Genesis 7:23, Genesis 11:4, Genesis 11:9, Exodus 32:12, Exodus 33:16, Numbers 12:3, Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 14:2, Samuel 20:15, Samuel 14:7, Kings 13:34, Job 37:12, Psalm 104:30, Isaiah 23:17, Jeremiah 25:26, Jeremiah 28:16, Ezekiel 38:20, Amos 9:8, Zephaniah 1:2, Zephaniah 1:3, Luke 21:35

Other passages that state the Earth is flat include:
Job 11:9 "Their measure is longer than the Earth and wider than the sea."
Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the Earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?"
Job 38:13 "That it might take the Earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?"
Daniel 4:10-11 "I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the center of the Earth. Its height was enormous. The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the Earth."

The Bible also teaches us that our flat Earth is a stationary object that the rest of the universe rotates around. Passages that refer this statement include:
Psalm 93:1 "The world also is established, that it cannot be moved."
Psalm 96:10 "Say among the nations, the lord reigns. The Earth is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity."
Psalm 104:5 The Lord "laid the foundations of the Earth, that it should not be removed for ever."
I Chronicles 16:30 "The world also shall be stable, that it be not moved."
Ecclesiastes 1:5 "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises."

it seems like they are afraid to answer these :smt075 bad creationist! BAD

I don't know how I missed this and I know it is late, but feel free.

You are ALL welcome to use anything I say or write here on your own site or to post in another forum or whatever - that's why I wrote it! I want people to read it!

All I ask is that you give credit where it is due and a shout out to this site.

Even if I DID believe in such a critter, if he existed Lucifer was right to leave him. In fact, so many more atrocities are attributed to god than satan in the bible that I don't get why satanis always made out to be the bad guy.