Monday, January 12, 2009
Answers in Genesis: Why Did God Make Viruses?
Here is an interesting article from answersingenesis.org about the purpose of viruses in creation. I had never heard before that viruses are actually mostly beneficial mechanisms, just as most bacteria are. The article reminds us of the fact that God in His infinite wisdom and foreknowledge designed everything to work according to His plan. It also brings out that evolutionists are constantly missing opportunities to discover amazing things because they start from a false premise and are so busy trying to prove their false idea that they always miss the the goodness that is right in front of them.
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This makes me sad and irritated, your last sentence especially. How can you (or anyone) possibly know that? It is so skewed from the actual way that science works.
AIG is a propaganda site that uses lots of strawmen.
(I came to your site because of a link from one of Elena's sites.)
Do you really know anything about Answers in Genesis, or are you just repeating something that you heard? If you take the time to go to the website and read the articles, you might be surprised at the evidence there is for a biblical creation.
My statement was based on my own observations of evolutionists; that many are obsessed with proving evolution, instead of investigating all the wonders around them. I know there are many scientists doing investigations, but I see alot of the former. It seems that whenever a 'discovery' is made, it's always shouted from the rooftops as proof of evolution, even though it is no such thing.
I have read several articles on the AIG site and they gave me a headache with their tone and their approach toward actual scientific research.
I guessed that your statement was a conclusion drawn from that AIG essay. If it's your own observation, then maybe you could explain who you mean by evolutionists or maybe give examples if there are some people you could describe. When you wrote about missing opportunities to discover amazing things, it sounded like you were talking about biological researchers and had some specific examples in mind.
I'm going to make a kind of analogy to try to give you a sense of how that website article and your post make me feel. It's not a great analogy but maybe enough to give you the idea.
I had an ancestor on the Mayflower too, but he died during the first hungry cold winter. Now imagine 25 years later, a brother of one of the pilgrims comes over to join them and visits the landing site. They tell him about that first terrible winter, and he says, "If only you hadn't been blocked by your false premise that the surrounding area was just a wilderness, when here was a cleared path not far away that led to good farmland." But when the pilgrims landed, there would have been no path or cleared farmland. They would have struggled to make a path through briars and thickets. Some vague idea that the land was 'good' or the land was 'unfriendly' would have been useless; the only way to find out the capacity of the land would have been to do the slow hard work of investigating and mapping and working with it. They would have to have cut down the trees for farmland and roads, dammed streams to make swamps into pastures. Some vague idea that the wilderness was good would not have led them to making maple syrup or growing corn; it took actual experience with the people there to find that out. Without actual research of the area, some vague advice that they were missing wonders by focusing on the dangers and problems of the territory would have been useless. And for someone to come to the scene after all the hard work was done and condescendingly tell them how they had missed the obvious easy path - when none actually existed - would have been offensive.
That's how I feel about the tone of AIG. Their material seems to imply by their wording that the 'scientists' blundered around while the creationist views sorted it out and made sense of it, when actually the creationists were outsiders to the whole process.
Whether viruses are beneficial (whatever that means) or harmful or some combination is beside the point. The point is how they function on a molecular level. It took years of research by many people and improved technologies to understand the detail that we know so far about viruses and DNA and cells.
As for scientists being obsessed with proving evolution, they are not. Scientists are obsessed with understanding biological processes. Evolution is considered the basis for those processes, and has been taken for granted in biology for a long time because there has been so much solid interwoven and internally consistent evidence.
Of course biologists want to present information that helps to show laypeople that evolution is the way things happened since so many people reject it for religious reasons. Maybe that is what you see as obsession with proving evolution. The scientific community doesn't need to be convinced. (And also the news media gets involved in publicizing discoveries and they are not always accurate with the way they present material.)
Hello High Desert,
my statement was just a general observation based on what I have observed of the interactions between creationists and evolutionists in the media. I'm not a scientist, but have always been interested in it and in learning about the evidence for creation as opposed to evolution. My father is an electrical engineer and having a scientific mindset studied the evidences for creationism vs. evolution for years, and it rubbed off on me, too. I believe the evidence agrees with the bible's teachings.
My statement that they are so busy trying to prove their false idea that they miss the goodness right in front of them probably should have been qualified by saying that 'some' evolutionists do this, and also it might be more accurate to say that 'because they start from a false premise they miss many good things that show the glory of our creator', not that they are necessarily all trying to prove evolution.
Creationists have been at the forefront of science for centuries, and have pioneered in all the major fields of science. I believe that if creationism was still the driving force behind all of science, that much greater strides would have been made. Creationists have been shut out of many jobs and journals because so many have bought into the idea of evolution, which has not been proven but only asserted.
Proof is a tricky word in science - I would say it is not normally used, in biology at least, because the door is always open a tiny crack for new information that would change things. But as time goes by and evidence accumulates for an idea, the amount and type of new information that would be necessary to re-open that door gets larger and larger, so that the possibility of any new study changing it is very very small, This is true for the age of the earth in geology and evolution in biology. There is too strong a body of info already existing for anyone to expect it to be overturned, so those things are considered 'fact' (again people play with definitions, but that is the sense of it). If someone chooses Genesis over the accumulated info then that person is either not (in that particular case) thinking scientifically or else not showing familiarity with the knowledge in the field.
There was a time when almost everyone in the western world believed in the Bible literally. You could say the scientists of that time were creationists, but there was no other way to be. The starting premise WAS for a young earth and for special creation. It was accumulated information that rejected those entrenched ideas.
I don't know why this is a problem for people who take the Bible literally since it is you people who believe in an all-powerful creative God. Scientists have to drudge through the available natural evidence bit by bit while you have the option that God used supernatural power to make things happen. So why does science have to be distorted into giving a 'natural' explanation for events in Genesis? Science investigates what the earth physically looks like, and if God made the earth look one way but actually created things in a different sequence (as described in Genesis) then that is not the scientists' problem. I see all the stuff in AIG etc. as not genuine scientific thought but an attempt to always twist things to fit Genesis, which is why I call it propaganda. (Do people even use that word any more? Maybe I am showing my age.)
When you read creationist essays on websites, keep your eye open for words stuck in to add a supposed emotional bias to scientific findings. For example, I don't remember the website, but on some page I noticed a phrase like this: 'scientists ADMITTED that ... something-or-other'. The word 'admitted' implies an emotional response from the scientists, maybe implying that their position was weakened. In fact the scientists just REPORTED their findings and were not troubled at all by what the new information brought. Sorry I don't remember the site, but you might look for wordage like that when you read.
I'm not putting forth an argument here, just giving some ideas and venting a bit.
(My dad was also an EE. He was a serious Christian when we were growing up, but our church (Methodists) did not assume that all the Bible was literally true and neither did my father.)
High Desert,
If someone chooses Genesis over the accumulated info then that person is either not (in that particular case) thinking scientifically or else not showing familiarity with the knowledge in the field.
There was a time when almost everyone in the western world believed in the Bible literally. You could say the scientists of that time were creationists, but there was no other way to be. The starting premise WAS for a young earth and for special creation. It was accumulated information that rejected those entrenched ideas.
I understand why you think this, but it is simply not true. The scientists who embrace Creationism are constantly being amazed by how their studies, and the studies of others that they interpret, support the Biblical account of creation. The fossil record, for instance, supports the global flood. The worldwide fossil deposits could never have been accomplished in the way that evolutionists try to explain. Only a worldwide flood and the aftermaths of it can explain it.
Also, the tests done to find the age of fossils, etc. are demonstrably inaccurate. There are many scientists who have explained these things. I believe there is nothing that cannot be shown to be evidence for creation, once properly and honestly understood. I don't fear evolution ever being proved or creationism being disproved. It never will happen. I don't believe in blind faith when it comes to science, either. I know the evidence will support the Bible.
It was not accumulated information that caused the biblical theories to be rejected. The world was ripe for accepting any idea that would give them the excuse to scrap the Word of God and accept their own word as law. Darwin merely gave the excuse by his theory. He himself knew there was no proof of overall evolution. Only natural selection is seen, which is not evolution in the sense that he saw it.
Well, I pretty much disagree with everything in your comment, and probably you feel the same about mine. The part about rejection of biblical theories (presumably by scientists?) because they want to be free of the Bible seems especially far off the mark to me.
But thank you for posting my comments and responding to them.
High Desert,
thanks for commenting, and feel free to come back any time.
Just know that I believe in the biblical account with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, because I believe that God's word from His own mouth is true, and secondly because the evidence supports it.
A question to consider: How did both a male and a female of every species evolve?
If you believe God used evolution, why did He say everything was 'very good' when He finished if death and disease and sin had played a part in making it by evolution? There was no death and sickness and mutations until after the fall of man right after creation.
In your comment, "A question to consider: How did both a male and a female of every species evolve?”, it sounds like you are suggesting that this is an insurmountable problem for the evolutionary process. That is not the case. I think you are making some incorrect assumptions about how species develop, but I can only guess what your assumptions are.
I think you may be picturing an all-or-nothing event, rather than a gradual process of accumulated mutations spreading through a population.
If an animal were born with a particular mutation which completely prevented that animal from reproducing with any other animal in its population, then that mutation would not be passed on. (I think that’s what your comment is suggesting.) But mutations do not have to be barriers to reproduction, so the animal carrying the mutation can breed with the other members of the population it is already in. Some mutations might make reproduction less likely but if reproduction were not impossible the mutation still might be able to be spread into the population.
A single animal containing a mutation would not be a new species or subspecies. A pair of animals would not give birth to an animal of a totally new species; a species is a not a single animal but a breeding population. It is likely that two species are differentiated by more than one mutation and the mutations can accumulate over time; they don't have to happen all at once.
The barrier to reproduction can initially be something like a geographic barrier. Different mutations can accumulate in two geographically separated populations in little steps so that there is no genetic barrier to reproduction within each subpopulation. But if the geographic barrier is removed, the accumulated mutations do make a barrier to hinder reproduction between the two subpopulations, and the subpopulations might by that time have changed enough to be considered different subspecies or species.
(I'm not happy about the writing in the comment I sent in before this one. I tried to include some different points on the chance that they might relate to what you were thinking about the question. But as a whole, it wasn't a clear explanation.)
highdesert,
my question about how a male and female of every species could evolve was to make you think about how it could possibly happen IN THE FIRST PLACE that a male could evolve and also at the same time a female could evolve so that they could reproduce and make more of their species. And then how could this impossible thing happen for every species of creature that uses this type of reproduction?
Does not the presence of the same type of reproductive process in parallel species indicate a creator who thought of the process and created creatures of all kinds who have the a similar system?
>>"Does not the presence of the same type of reproductive process in parallel species indicate a creator who thought of the process and created creatures of all kinds who have the a similar system?"
No, it doesn't indicate anything one way or another about a creator who thought of the process. The reason is that an all-powerful creator could have just as easily created creatures all with different systems. If I understand correctly, there's no way that you can make assumptions about how this creator would have chosen to make each species (or 'kind', or whatever level people think was the initial creation). There's a verse in Job that makes sense to me in this context. How can you second-guess the creator and say, well, of course the creator would have used the same design repeatedly, just like some human software designer. Is the creator limited to some human limitation of practicality? I have also seen people say that the creator must have had a sense of humor for creating giraffes, or wanted to make things beautiful for people by creating butterflies etc, which is more second-guessing and attributing human opinions of animals to the creator.
On the other hand, the evolutionary expectation is that all creatures are twigs on branches from a common stem, with an unbroken line of cellular and genetic processes and information from the trunk to the twigs. So you would expect to see similarity between species. There would be differences too as a result of mutations and natural selection etc. over time, but there are some kinds of differences you would not expect to see. If we saw those differences we might have to consider that not all creatures on earth had come from a common pathway. But those differences have not shown up. So evolution works as a solid explanation of the diversity of the species.
What we see is consistent with evolution and does not argue against it. And while you could also say that an intelligent and superpowerful creator COULD have done things in the identical way, I don't see how you can claim that that creator would of course have created things in this particular way.
For the moment, let's just talk about the mammals. If the ancestor of the mammals had two genders then as any twig of a subspecies began to branch off (by geographic barriers plus accumulated mutations etc.), the genetic information for having two genders would already be a part of the genetic make-up of that breeding population. It wouldn't have to start from scratch every time.
You have mistaken my meaning. I didn't mean that God could only have created things in this one way, but that it is impossible for evolutionary processes to have produced those systems and creatures.
I agree that God could have created things in a much different way than they are, but I don't see any way for life to have developed at all by chance, especially such complex and specifically 'designed' systems as we see in all living things and also in the environment of earth itself.
I did misunderstand what you meant there.
I still don't see why you think that it is impossible to explain having males and females of all those species by evolutionary processes, especially in animals like the vertebrates. I don't understand what you're envisioning, or what evidence you are thinking of that would make it impossible. The way you brought it up, it seemed like you think it should be obvious to me if I thought about it, and really it's the opposite. I don't understand why you think it's a problem. (We can let it go though if it's getting tedious.)
Well, I'm not a scientist, as I said, so I don't know how to explain what I mean, except to say that it is impossible for life to have APPEARED and developed in all it's complexity without a creator.
There is no way for life to begin without a creator. No one has shown that the conditions could even have existed to allow it, and if the conditions did exist, then still it is impossible to conceive of life and mind and spirit appearing without a supernatural creator, except in the world of fairy tales and science fiction.
If you believe that God created the world using evolution, then you are trying to unite two opposing ideas that cannot exist together. The very idea of evolution as Darwin conceived it (and others before him) is opposed to God. He came up with the idea because he didn't want to accept a God that he had to be accountable to. Here's an article that explains better than I can about why evolution and creationism can't coexist. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/couldnt-god-have-used-evolution
First, I'm no longer a Christian although I was raised that way and know what it feels like to believe. But I lost my faith long ago and now I'm a nonbeliever, atheist/agnostic or atheist depending on definition. But when I was a Christian, my church, the Methodist church, did teach that God created the world using evolution. My family members who are still Christians think that way. I think it's true that most mainsteam Protestant churches accept evolution. And the Catholic church does not reject evolution. So your view that evolution can't coexist with a belief in God as creator is not held by many Christians and many Christian churches. I'm not the one to argue about this since it is no longer something I believe. But if all those Christians and Christian churches do not share the view of your church then I would say that the conclusion is not as clear and automatic as it seems to you, your church, or the people at AIG etc.
I think you are wrong that Darwin came up with his idea because he didn't want to accept God - I think that is a belittling and untrue and seriously nonsensical claim to apply to Darwin or scientists in general. Anyone who makes that claim about scientists is making things up or talking from ignorance.
You say that it is impossible for life to have appeared without a creator. But you can't know that. All you can really say is that it seems impossible to you based on what you've read. Evolution of the species once life is present is accepted by biology; the process by which life could have originated from nonliving chemicals is definitely not understood at this point, but also it is not ruled out. People are working to try to understand how it might have happened. Science doesn't draw a line and say it's impossible just because it is not currently understood.
Talking about the origins of both male and female of a species is so much easier than talking about the origin of life.
But when I was a Christian, my church, the Methodist church, did teach that God created the world using evolution. My family members who are still Christians think that way. I think it's true that most mainsteam Protestant churches accept evolution. And the Catholic church does not reject evolution. So your view that evolution can't coexist with a belief in God as creator is not held by many Christians and many Christian churches.
Highdesert,
It's true that many churches believe evolution can coexist with Christianity. But leading evolutionists/atheists have mocked this belief and shown that the two are diametrically opposing systems. Christians who believe evolution have bought into a lie through ignorance of the origins of evolutionary thought. It is not a new idea, but comes from ancient religions that have opposed God all along.
If evolution is true, then the Bible is not. If the Bible is true, then evolution is not.
Jesus, the Son of God, quoted from Genesis, showing that it was true. He was there, and with the Father and the Spirit, created everything.
Here is a quote from G. Richard Bozarth about how the two systems are utterly opposed:
“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.”
G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution”, American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30
He is right that if God's word can be shown to be false then Christianity is destroyed. But though the lie is firmly entrenched in our society, it will be shown to be a lie. Jesus is going to return to judge the world and vindicate His people. The evidence will be shown to support His word, as I have already seen.
I think you are wrong that Darwin came up with his idea because he didn't want to accept God - I think that is a belittling and untrue and seriously nonsensical claim to apply to Darwin or scientists in general. Anyone who makes that claim about scientists is making things up or talking from ignorance.
Here is an article about Darwin which may give some insight, though you may not agree with the perspective of it.
>>"If evolution is true, then the Bible is not. If the Bible is true, then evolution is not."
Current scientific evidence strongly supports evolution as the way that the various lifeforms originated. However if you choose to believe that Genesis in the Bible is literally true, I still think you have an option.
You can say that God created things so that they physically have the characteristics that suggest an old age and an evolutionary origin of the various species, but they were actually created separately and recently, as described in Genesis, for some divine reason which has not been reveal to us.
Or you can simply leave it as a mystery to be resolved eventually, as you suggested above:
"The evidence will be shown to support His word, as I have already seen."
I would think you could believe that while accepting that AT THIS TIME the evidence does not in fact support Genesis.
It seems to me that this approach would allow you your belief in a literal Genesis without insisting that Genesis be supported by current scientific evidence.
Sorry, I forgot to post the link to the Darwin article: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n1/pursuit-darwin
I would think you could believe that while accepting that AT THIS TIME the evidence does not in fact support Genesis.
Highdesert, I believe that the evidence does support Genesis, and that those who believe it supports evolution are choosing to ignore this, and being willfully ignorant.
On the other hand, there are Christians who are willfully ignorant when they think that science contradicts the Bible and so try to say that they believe in spite of the evidence. These people give Christianity a bad name and show that they really don't have faith in God, because they are afraid of the truth.
>>"I believe that the evidence does support Genesis, and that those who believe it supports evolution are choosing to ignore this, and being willfully ignorant."
You've said you are not a scientist. I'm sort of a scientist (depending on definition) and my major was in a field of biology. I've known and worked with a number of scientists, and all my experience and all I've learned is in opposition to your statement, both in regard to the evidence and in regard to the views of scientists about the evidence.
If the words 'Genesis' and 'evolution' were switched in your sentence, it would represent what I feel about the creationists such as AiG. (Except that I would substitute some phrase like 'find the evidence convincing' for the word 'believe'.)
Because you are convinced that the evidence supports Genesis and does not support evolution etc, it seems like there could be a discussion purely about scientific evidence or its interpretation, separate from religious beliefs. I was trying to go in that direction before when you questioned how males and females could have evolved.
Also, I had written a longer comment which wasn't posted and I may have forgotten to enter it. But there was one part that was relevant to Darwin (I haven't read your link yet):
>>”Christians who believe evolution have bought into a lie through ignorance of the origins of evolutionary thought. It is not a new idea, but comes from ancient religions that have opposed God all along.”
No, this is totally wrong. It doesn’t matter at all what some ancient religions thought about anything. That has ZERO to do with scientific thinking or evolutionary biology. It doesn’t even matter what Darwin thought. Darwin’s book is 100 years old; we know so much that he didn’t have any idea about, like genetics.
If you like, you can post some things about scientific evidence and interpretation; However, I would probably have to research the subjects to see what both sides are saying. If you would post some articles from your point of view, I can look up some from the creationist point of view. I can understand very well as long as the language isn't overly technical.
Also, if you are really interested in debating, you might question AIG directly with your concerns. That would eliminate the 'middleman' (myself) and you would get answers from scientists who understand the subjects intimately.
But I am glad to try and discuss things with you, and give my perspective.
Darwin’s book is 100 years old; we know so much that he didn’t have any idea about, like genetics.
As far as I know, no recent studies have done any more to prove evolution than earlier studies have. I do know that 'evidence' can be interpreted in different ways. I believe genetics generally can be shown to point back to creation, and does nothing to prove evolution.
>>”I believe that the evidence does support Genesis, and that those who believe it supports evolution are choosing to ignore this, and being willfully ignorant.”
I’m not sure what you mean by willfully ignorant.
Hmmm, I have to backtrack.
Really, with your position as you have described it, you have to say that any evidence that contradicts your view of a young earth, special creation etc, has to be incorrect in some way – the evidence, or assumptions or analysis are wrong. You don’t have to even see the evidence – you’ve already made the choice that it is incorrect based on your conclusions about the text of Genesis. That has to be your starting point for any discussions, if I understand correctly. So you may be saying two things: that you think from what you’ve read from creationist material that the scientific evidence on a practical level can be interpreted so that it actually support your view, and at the same time, regardless of what the evidence actually says, it HAS to support your view or be false.
I would guess that information about evolution would be easier for you to find reasonable than information about the age of the earth, because you can use the argument that God could have chosen to create life in just the way it appears genetically. And there is also the idea from AiG etc. that some version of hyperevolution and speciation (‘microevolution’) did occur after the flood (although I’m not sure their view is equivalent to biological evolution). Throw in the effects of the Fall, and there is a lot of room for creationists to say that what appears in biological research can be mapped onto their religious ideas. So there is a lot of information that strongly supports and is consistent with evolution, in particular all the recent genomic information. At the same time, creationists will say that info is not incompatible with biblical creation.
In my understanding, in order for evolution to be shown to be true, there has to be evidence of intermediate forms as one thing changed into another; and this should be seen in abundance if this happened over millions of years. But there are no such intermediate forms between one species and another. There are, however, fossils of creatures that existed many years ago that are basically the same as creatures that exist today.
The fossil record itself, and its very existence can be shown to be in agreement with biblical creation and teaching on the flood. Fossils are only formed when very specific conditions occur, such as would have occurred in a worldwide flood and its aftermath. All the evidence points to the flood of Noah and its aftermath forming the fossil record, including the layers of earth and rock, very quickly.
I'm not sure there's any need for intermediate fossils as evidence for evolution.
The vagaries of fossilization mean that you can't assume that there will be fossils from every time, every habitat, every organism, every type of tissue, in place where they can be found; a lot of it is luck. So I think your assumption that there should be an abundance is incorrect.
But in fact there are some intermediate fossils, and one of the most recent ones discovered was a fossil which is intermediate between a fish and a tetrapod. It was named Tiktaalit. An impressive thing about this discovery was that the researcher, Schubin, chose a site where there were exposed rocks from the time he thought this kind of organism might have lived. I think his team spent four summers looking for fossils at that Arctic site before they discovered the bones of Tiktaalit, so the fossils were very difficult to find. But his knowledge of geology and geological time put him in the right place to make that find. You said there are no such intermediate forms, but Tiktaalit is a good example of an intermediate form.
I think it is not that there are no intermediate forms, but that creationists find a variety of ways to reject any intermediate forms. For instance it would be easy (but incorrect) to reject Tiktaalit as an example of an intermediate by saying that its fishlike characteristics show that it is just a fish rather than an intermediate form. (Of course if it had no fishlike characteristics, they would say that that showed it was not an intermediate.) Another creationist approach might be to say that there is still too big a gap between Tiktaalit and the fishes, (or Tiktaalit and the tetrapods) to support evolution, requiring the discovery of more intermediate organisms.
Some creationist supporters seem to have mental images for supposed intermediate forms which are actually totally different from what evolutionary biology would predict, or what embryological development would allow, for instance an animal that looks like half cat-half dog, or an animal with a wing on one side and an arm on the other.
Before you say there are no intermediates, you might want to think about what mental picture you have of an acceptable example of an intermediate organism, and whether that mental picture is actually in line with what evolutionary biology would predict and what embryological development would make possible. Then consider whether there is any hope at all of coming across a fossil of that animal.
And after that, ask yourself if no matter how well it worked as an intermediate, whether you would rule it out because God could have made it that way originally as yet another separate creation.
It’s pointless to say that there are no intermediate forms if you’ve made it impossible ahead of time for any organism to realistically meet your criteria.
Highdesert,
Evolutionists once thought of the coelecanth as an intermediate form, but then living coelecanths were found that were unchanged from the fossilized ones. No evolution has occurred in that case. Tiktaalik is also apparently just a fish. The creationist scientists who have studied it have a good understanding of the subject and see that the characteristics of tiktaalik are similar to other fish of its type and that its fins are no closer to being able to support its weight while walking on land than any other fish. Fish can drag themselves across land, or skip in some way, but it bears no resemblance to the walking that tetropods do. Following are two articles from AIG examining the evidence for tiktaalik.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v1/n1/story-walking-fish
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/tiktaalik-fishy-fish
Some creationist supporters seem to have mental images for supposed intermediate forms which are actually totally different from what evolutionary biology would predict, or what embryological development would allow, for instance an animal that looks like half cat-half dog, or an animal with a wing on one side and an arm on the other.
Where did you get the idea that creationist supporters believe such things? Certainly not from anyone with any understanding of science. Maybe a kindergartner might imagine such things, or someone who has never had any education or exposure to different viewpoints and subjects. Certainly there may be such people, but you'd have to ignore the many intelligent and well-informed people to think this was the norm.
Going back to intermediate forms; considering that evolutionist supporters are so quick to call something an intermediate form and allow it to be declared to the world as such, it would appear that they don't have any examples that pan out any better than tiktaalik or coelecanth did.
Also, coelecanth shows that no evolution has occurred in its case. I think many living animals have fossil examples that show they are unchanged since the beginning.
There is also no sign of evolution currently taking place.
As far as ruling things out as intermediate forms goes, I would be a little worried if researchers found a fish with real legs that are attached to a pelvis and could actually walk like a lizard does, for example. I don't know that anyone really has a good idea of what an intermediate form would be that could actually survive long enough to develop into something else. Each creature is specially made to survive in its own environment. If it started to change, it would be unfit and die. What about male and female? What if a female fish laid eggs and one hatched that began to have legs? Would it survive long enough to reproduce, and if it did and mated with the opposite sex, would their offspring have legs or revert because one parent didn't? I don't know, but it seems very unlikely to be successful when actually thought through.
It is not a problem that the coelacanth is still a surviving species. If it was fit for its environment and the environment didn't change, there's no need for it to have changed or gone extinct. At the same time, a branch from that group of fish could have over time accumulated changes and become ancestral to some modern organisms. One doesn't rule out the other.
Here's one article; there are others. Maybe I can find one that is less technical.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7085/full/nature04639.html
(Also Schubiun has a book out called "Your Inner Fish".)
(there's a little bit in this pdf, section 2:
http://www.nature.com/nature/newspdf/evolutiongems.pdf
maybe not that useful)
It is not a problem that the coelacanth is still a surviving species. If it was fit for its environment and the environment didn't change, there's no need for it to have changed or gone extinct.
Creatures are created to survive in certain environments or to be able to adapt (without changing to another creature), and if the environment changes and they cannot adapt or move to a new environment, they die. They do not have time to change slowly over millions of years. Death or quick adaptation, or microevolution if there is time, is what happens.
Habitats don't have to be all or nothing. There are edges where an animal can be in both, or there can be a gradual change, for instance up the slope of a mountain. So you can have fish which can move between the deeper water and shallower water. If certain fish have mutations that make them more able to survive in the shallow water, and pass them on to their offspring, then those fish have better access to get food in the shallow areas.
I'm not sure I was clear on this point - I don't think they are assuming that Tiktaalit had to be the exact ancestral species for tetrapods - there could have been lots of related species from which the actual tetrapod lineage could have evolved - cousins or third cousins twice removed from the genus and species of those actual fossils. Also I didn't mean to suggest that there were no other species between Tiktaalit and the fossils which have less or more of the limb development. I imagine there were other changes between them. The point is, the Tiktaalit fossils show a stage in evolution with features that show a transition from water to land. In that article you can see a sketch of some of the other fossils previously found, and how Tiktaalit fits in.
(I spelled the author's name wrong - it's Shubin. And I should really have italicized 'Tiktaalit' - ,Tiktaalit - oh well.)
If you look up Shubin's book ("Your Inner Fish") on amazon you can read a few pages - p. 22 etc. or p. 38-42 talk about the structure a bit.
From p. 22-23:
"Fish and land living animals differ in many respects. Fish have conical heads, whereas the earliest land-living animals have almost crocodile-like heads--flat, with the eyes on top. Fish do not have necks; their shoulders are attached to their heads by a series of bony plates. Early land-living animlas, like all their descendants, do have necks, meaning their heads can bend independently of their shoulders.
There are other big differences. Fish have scales all over their bodies; land-living animals do not. Also, importantly, fish have fins, whereas land-living animals have limbs with fingers, toes, wrists, and ankles. ...
But our new creature broke down the distinction between these two different kinds of animal. Like a fish, it has scales on its back and fins with fin webbing. But, like early land-living animals, it has a flat head and neck. And, when we look inside the fin, we see bones that correspond to the upper arm, the forearm, even parts of the wrist. The joints are there too; this is a fish with shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints. All inside a fin with webbing."
Highdesert,
Here are some articles by scientists that show that there is no known mechanism for evolution; that mutations cannot account for it, and only special design can account for the presence of genetic material.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/genetics.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v20/n2/genetics
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/ch2-mutations.asp
(I'll look at those links later - I want to respond to previous comments first, but it may take me a while.)
Ok. I'm still working on your links too.
I'm having trouble getting back to this topic.
I wanted to say that Tiktaalik was a fish, but not just a fish: it had structural features which were transitional to the tetrapods.
It was similar to another fish, Panderichthys, another fossil fish which also could be considered a transitional form.
Tiktaalik's skeleton had some differences with Panderichthys which made it more like a tetrapod. It had changes in its head and neck which apparently made it able to turn its head separate from its body, which fish normally can't do. And it had differences in its wrist bones that apparently did make it more like a tetrapod wrist, and made it able to rest on its fins and raise the front of its body, based on how the bones could rotate in the joints.
I don't think any claims were made that Tiktaalik could walk, or in particular that it could walk on land. There is no description of any pelvic bones in the paper; they did not seem to have the whole fossil skeleton, just the front. If Tiktaalik was like Panderichthys in the back, then the pelvic fin was still weak compared to the pectoral fin. That's okay - it doesn't have to have been able to walk to be a transitional form. There are several features that have to change between fish and tetrapods, and they don't have to have happened at the same time. Tiktaalik was intermediate between fish and tetrapods in a variety of ways. Maybe other intermediate forms will be found that are later in the transition and show changes in the pelvic girdle, and those will also be transitional forms. Such a discovery would be interesting and would help to fill in more details. But it is accepted that tetrapods evolved from fish whether any more fossils are found or not.
There are living fish that can drag themselves across the mudflats etc, but they don't have the right bone structure for their ancestors to have been close relatives of the tetrapod ancestors unless they are lobe-finned fish.
I read your AIG link on Tiktaalik. It has the same kinds of problems I see in other AIG pages I have looked at. A lot of innunedo is going on, without much depth of information. Words like 'hyped', 'grandiose', 'concede', 'weakly', 'propped up'. The whole tone is negative and dismissive in a way that I think is misleading. For instance,
"...Tiktaalit has been recently propped up as the "savior" of the evolutionary paradigm. How soon will it be before Tiktaalik is abandoned also?"
Good grief, the evolutionary paradigm is in no need of a "savior"; if this fossil had never been discovered it would not have affected the strength of evolutionary theory one bit. It is interesting information that helps to explain details of how things happened, that's all. I'm not sure what he's referring to when he says 'abandoned' - it sounds almost as if he's implying that there is just one perfect transitional form. That's wrong - there are many steps so there can be lots of forms in direct lineages or forms that have branched off the ancestral lineage.
Look at the section on the lungfish. The ancestral lungfish or an ancestor to the lungfish and coelacanths is a possibility for the ancestor of the tetrapods. But see his word choices: "superficial resemblance", "caught the imagination". He describes the lungfish breathing air with lungs, and pulling themselves along with their fins. But then he talks about other fish besides lungfish which are "airbreathers and 'walkers'". He says that "none of these curious fish are considered by evolutionists to be ancestors of the tetrapods - they are simply interesting and specialized fish." What's the implication here? I think he's implying that evolutionary biology sees lungfish as ancestral relations to the tetrapods for no better reason than these airbreathing and 'walking' behaviors, which are also seen in other fish. There is no discussion of WHY those other fish are not considered close ancestral relatives. Then he ends the paragraph by talking about how 'evolutionists' do not consider flying fish to be ancestors of birds. Well, no, of course not. I think he is trying to imply that that when evolutionary biology sees the ancestral lungfish (and other sarcopterygians) as possible tetrapod ancestors, it is based on fuzzy thinking that any person with common sense would see was superficial. He doesn't come right out and say it, but I think that implication is woven into his writing.
The goal of the AIG as far as I can see, is to provide reassurance to its readers that their belief in a literal Genesis is not threatened by science. Anything they write will be crafted for the lay reader to send that message.
High Desert,
I wanted to say that Tiktaalik was a fish, but not just a fish: it had structural features which were transitional to the tetrapods.
It was similar to another fish, Panderichthys, another fossil fish which also could be considered a transitional form.
Tiktaalik's skeleton had some differences with Panderichthys which made it more like a tetrapod. It had changes in its head and neck which apparently made it able to turn its head separate from its body, which fish normally can't do. And it had differences in its wrist bones that apparently did make it more like a tetrapod wrist, and made it able to rest on its fins and raise the front of its body, based on how the bones could rotate in the joints.
I read some of the articles you linked to, but haven't finished. Alot is very technical for me, as you said they were. I'm not sure if I'm the right person to talk to about technical issues, since I can't really argue any points about the specifics. What I see from reading and looking at the pictures is that someone who is expecting to see transitional forms will see things that could be interpreted that way. Someone who is expecting to see animals specifically designed for their environments, such as mud flats, are going to interpret it that way. The fact that the tiktaalik is like a fish and yet like other creatures, like a crocodile in its head shape I think, could be because that design is good for its intended environment. So we are not going to get anywhere. I think you should talk to some creation scientists and find out that they are real people with knowledge and faith that is not blind.
I don't agree that AIG is propaganda. They believe the evolutionary teachings are the propaganda of atheism. They are counteracting many years of evolutionary teaching and helping people to see that science doesn't prove evolution.
Some of the things in the articles are too technical for me too.
There's a book called "Gaining Ground" by Jennifer Clack (written before the Tiktaalik discovery). I just got it out of the library, but some of it is readable on google books - chapter 3. It seemed like it was useful.
But here's what I really wanted to say. The evidence is what you'd expect from transitional forms, but if you belive each thing was created separately then you can say it was designed that way. You can ALWAYS say that, no matter what the fossil looks like. No matter how close a series of fossils was discovered, you could ALWAYS say that each one could be an individual creation.
So there can never be a fossil described as a transitional form that would convince you (or AIG), right? But That's not the same thing as saying that science has never found forms that appear to be transitional. They do appear to be transitional. Your belief rejects them on principle, not because they fail structurally as transitional forms.
It's just not fair to say that transitional forms have never been found. They have been found - they just didn't convince you. But that's not the same thing.
I think my last comment was not phrased well; I typed it in too fast.
I don't expect you to agree that they are transitional fossils. But it seems like you could say something other than that there are NO transitional fossils.
Here's a blog post on evolution by a young earth creationist and baraminologist (a person who tries to research the 'kinds' of animals from Noah's ark:
http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html
He also has a post today about the reactions to the post above.
(You can post this comment or not as you wish.)
Highdesert,
Todd has a very interesting perspective, as a creationist scientist; I guess you are trying to show me that people who are knowledgeable in science can see that scientific data can be interpreted as evidence for evolution, and that there is, according to Todd, alot of data that can be interpreted as supporting evolution. He also says that he believes in God's word and not in evolution, so he does not believe evolution is the only interpretation for the data.
I see what you are saying, and I know that I have a somewhat limited knowledge of the extent of the complexity of creation, which caused me to see things as more 'black and white' or 'cut and dried' than they really are, or appear to be. So I should not be so quick to say that scientists who believe in evolution are deliberately hiding from the truth. I admit that is true.
I do agree with Todd, though, as he implies that those who believe in God's word also have reason to believe the evidence supports this view. I also believe that there are many things that cannot be explained by evolution or other non-creation theories of origins.
I also should say that I believe the fossil record, and the way fossils are formed, by creatures being covered quickly by sediment, supports the Biblical account of the flood rather than layers formed slowly over many years.
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