What makes Creationism so hard to believe in, and evolution so easy?

[cnfsdnlostinside]

There are many environmental variables that may aid in the fossilization process, such as pressure, exposure to air, moisture, decomposers, etc.

It is generally accepted that dinosaurs once populated the earth. If this is the case, some may ask "well why aren't there more fossils?" Not everything turns into a fossil. If a carcas is openly exposed to air for too long, aerobic (and/or anaerobic) bacteria and other decomposers will soon brake down and consume the organism. So obviously, the carcas needs to be covered relativly soon. High moisture levels, be it humidity or a lake, will also speed the rate at which organic things "brake down." I may be wrong on this next point, but i am fairly sure that high pressure (a lot of force) on an organism will also speed the rate at which it is preserved. In order to answer the question of time, the size of the organism must also be considered; a 400 pound animal will take a little longer than a tree leaf to fossilize.

[Buffy]

I really think it weakens your argument to associate this with the Republican party. I think the "traditional values" vote is split something like 54/46 toward Republicans. I suspect the "Biblical" vote is similar. This just is not really a party line issue.

I agree with that! I wasn't talking about *members* of the Republican Party (you might be surprised to find a certain raving lunatic liberal with a Republican Party card around here), I was talking about a good chunk of the *leaders* of the party who seem to pander excessively to the extremists...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[eMTee]

There are many environmental variables that may aid in the fossilization process, such as pressure, exposure to air, moisture, decomposers, etc.

 

There are many environments that may quicken the fossilization process? Quicken as in how many million years diffrence?

 

If a carcas is openly exposed to air for too long, aerobic (and/or anaerobic) bacteria and other decomposers will soon brake down and consume the organism. So obviously, the carcas needs to be covered relativly soon.

will this not controdict evolution, seeing a good amount uprite petrified trunks of larg trees

 

High moisture levels, be it humidity or a lake, will also speed the rate at which organic things "brake down.

 

Considering even in water and pressure, and quick cover from air..would the carcis be able to stay around with no decay for say even 1,000 years..being not petrified as of then, so soon?

[Buffy]

If a carcas is openly exposed to air for too long, aerobic (and/or anaerobic) bacteria and other decomposers will soon brake down and consume the organism. So obviously, the carcas needs to be covered relativly soon.

will this not controdict evolution, seeing a good amount uprite petrified trunks of larg trees

To quote Bill Bryson in his wonderful book "*A Short History of Nearly Everything"

It isn't easy to become a fossil. The fate of nearly all living organisms--over 99.9 percent of them--is to compost down to nothingness. When your spark is gone, every molecule you own will be nibbled off you or sluiced away to be put to use in some other system. ... Even if you make it into the small pool of organisms, less than 0.1 percent, that don't get devoured, the chances of being fossilized are very small...First you must die in the right place...the fossil must somehow maintain an identifiable shape. Finally...after tens of millions or perhaps hundreds of millions of years hidden away, it must be found and recognized as something worth keeping.

Its hard to see how carcasses breaking down too quickly to become a fossil would "contradict evolution", indeed, it explains why there are these "big gaps" in the fossil record. Creationists like to point to these gaps as if they are proof that evolution could not occur because there's nothing to fill in the gaps, while to scientists, this is just missing datapoints and its obvious why whole species are missing from the fossil record: they just didn't make it in! In spite of the gaps, there's clear relationships and trends shown in the fossils that are ultimately found and analyzed.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Biochemist]

...Its hard to see how carcasses breaking down too quickly to become a fossil would "contradict evolution", indeed, it explains why there are these "big gaps" in the fossil record. Creationists like to point to these gaps as if they are proof that evolution could not occur....

Hmmm. I don't think the relative rarity of animals getting fossilized is a problem. However, I am not a Creationist, and I find the gaps difficult to address. The problem is not the gaps, but that the gaps are so uneven. We might expect to see a reasonably even distribution of fossils (and gaps in the record) over time, within the bounds of the liklihood of a particular phylum to fossilize (e.g., I understand it is more difficult to get a fossil for a coelenterate than a typical vertebrate). We don't. The paleontologists stated as such in the early '80s.

 

I really wish that the evolution-of-homonids-from-the-promordial-soup camp would at least acknowledge that the existing fossil record is likely to be reasonably representative, and these gaps mean something. I think Punctuiated Equilibrium is an attempt to frame the problem, but it certainly does not define a mechanism for a solution.

 

There are just very few fossil-supported examples of a phylum jumping to another phylum, and that absence suggests a problem with the theory as commonly represented.

[eMTee]

Ok..back to the subject of the Bible being fact or fiction in it's stories of history.

 

Based on the readings in Exodus about the story of the Jew's exiting out of Egypt into the "promised land", and the events that took place. do you think it's fact or fiction? what do you think is fact, and what fictional?

[BEAKER]

Among folks that are academically trained, those folks that are theists do not assume that the earth is 4000 year old, or that the flood put fossils into place, or any of the other false-association arguments.

Bio, I'd like to know why you don't believe this. I for one, am a thiest that does; however not what you would call "academically trained"; and I think it's closer to 6000 years.

[Biochemist]

Bio, I'd like to know why you don't believe this. I for one, am a thiest that does; however not what you would call "academically trained"; and I think it's closer to 6000 years.

Well, without being longwinded, 1) I don't think Genesis 1 says anything at all about actual timing, in normal usage of Hebrew,2) I think the fossil record, although difficult to interpret is generally valid, and 3) I think the cosmological evidence relating to age of the universe is fundamentally valid (i.e., the universe is 13+ billion years old).

 

I do not think Genesis 1 (or even Genesis 1-12) was ever intended to be a dated chronology of the early history. Hebrew generally discounts chronology over message content (even in the more cleanly historical sections after Genesis 12). This is particularly true where the source of the book is obligatorily a vision (in Genesis 1, it was a vision to Moses or some earlier author that Moses aggregated). Certainly the Revelation to John, which is stated as a vision, is not chronological. The authors of these texts did not think like scientists, historians, or even theologians when they created the original documents. I think the intent was to demonstrate key events in history where God was intriciately involved. I think we are a little presumptuous to impute content or meaning that is not in the text.

[infamous]

I agree with that! I wasn't talking about *members* of the Republican Party (you might be surprised to find a certain raving lunatic liberal with a Republican Party card around here), I was talking about a good chunk of the *leaders* of the party who seem to pander excessively to the extremists...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

 

Pandering to extremists is not the private domain of the Republican Party. I believe you'll find an equal number on the other side of the isle. As of the present I'm turned off by both political parties constant bickering. Their agenda should be the American people's and I think they have both lost sight of that responsibility.

[infamous]

Ok..back to the subject of the Bible being fact or fiction in it's stories of history.

 

Based on the readings in Exodus about the story of the Jew's exiting out of Egypt into the "promised land", and the events that took place. do you think it's fact or fiction? what do you think is fact, and what fictional?

 

This is a subject for a different thread. I don't see a connection to the present topic.

[Buffy]

Pandering to extremists is not the private domain of the Republican Party...

Sorta agree, but I was referring to pandering on the subject of creationism-ought-to-be-in-the-science-curriculum. If ya wanna debate political pandering in general, we have space for it in the Social Sciences forum which doesn't get enough action... :circle:

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[infamous]

Sorta agree, but I was referring to pandering on the subject of creationism-ought-to-be-in-the-science-curriculum. If ya wanna debate political pandering in general, we have space for it in the Social Sciences forum which doesn't get enough action... :circle:

 

Cheers,

Buffy

 

I'll grant you that Buffy; I quess I missed the point you were trying to make at first read. However, about debating political pandering; I think you are the one that brought it up.

[Buffy]

I'll grant you that Buffy; I quess I missed the point you were trying to make at first read. However, about debating political pandering; I think you are the one that brought it up.

Guilty as charged, but I'd still argue I was on topic... :circle: Let's take that debate elsewhere tho....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Smokinjoe9]

I would just like to add a couple of comments..The Bible is a little something I have studied quite a bit...I have to say I don't think there are too many people who believe the Earth is 6000yrs old, on the contrary, within the context of Adam and Eve there is somewhat of a timeline, about 6000yrs..It has nothing to do with the age of the planet, as a matter of fact the Bible states the Earth could have taken an unlimited amount of time to become, (the earth). In reality, it does not say that there were no "humans" before Adam and Eve.IE: Theory about the land of Nod..The funny thing about people is we have a tendency to be stuck in our ways. That is the main reason we will continue to have such a hard time finding the truth. I believe in science and think it works fairly well within the limited bounderies of our intelligence so far, I just wish I could be here a thousand years from now to see what we have discovered..I'll bet the scientific theories we know so well will seem simplistic at best. :circle: Anyway, there are alot of references in the Bible that go hand in hand with science, it's all in how they are understood and/or deciphered. In my opinion, creationism and evolution should continue to be studied side by side I am sure there is a lot to be learned from both....It is my guess they are one in the same..

[TeleMad]

Why do I accept the fact of evolution and reject the silliness of Creationism? Because I am educated.

[Smokinjoe9]

Why do I accept the fact of evolution and reject the silliness of Creationism? Because I am educated.

That is not a reason, it just means you have been trained..Monkeys can be trained..That is like saying we don't need to find the missing link because you have faith that it is there, or the Earth is flat, hehe....

[paultrr]

Ok..back to the subject of the Bible being fact or fiction in it's stories of history.

 

Based on the readings in Exodus about the story of the Jew's exiting out of Egypt into the "promised land", and the events that took place. do you think it's fact or fiction? what do you think is fact, and what fictional?

 

I think the Bible like other religious books contains history at points. I think the Bible also contains insight into both the religious development of a people and other developments too. The Bible, like any other recounting of the past, must be subject to the same measures one is supposed to determine what is true and what is more rightly myth. Its not something one can using proper approaches andmethods of study say is all fact or all fiction. It seems more to be an admixture of both than anything else.