Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
What is six thousand years compared to the billion year age of the Earth?
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Just Accidental?
- Thread starter Deeje
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What is six thousand years compared to the billion year age of the Earth?
That is something to think about!
Many billions of profound changes in only six billion years. It is not possible.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
I would like a source for your statistics.
For what? For how many life forms there are presently?
Planet Earth is home to 8.7 million species, scientists estimate
There exists no statistic for how many changes each species completed.
Is this true or false?
If you google "how many species has there ever been on the Earth" you won't find the answer.
It seems to me that the figure could be found by adding 99% to the present number.
Can anyone guess why it is being kept a secret?
It seems to me that the figure could be found by adding 99% to the present number.
Can anyone guess why it is being kept a secret?
Silence will definitely make me say it.
I suck at algebra. Can anyone calculate this.
99% of X equals eight million.
Is that right?
OMG. There someone's sitting on my brain!
There are eight million living species. 99% of species that ever were have become extint.
It seems to me that with the knowledge of how many and what percent is gone it can be estimated
how many there ever was. How would anyone come to the figure of 99% and not know?
99% of X equals eight million.
Is that right?
OMG. There someone's sitting on my brain!
There are eight million living species. 99% of species that ever were have become extint.
It seems to me that with the knowledge of how many and what percent is gone it can be estimated
how many there ever was. How would anyone come to the figure of 99% and not know?
It is a BIG NUMBER relative to what appears to be a long time.
The time does not appear long to me. It is too short imho.
The time does not appear long to me. It is too short imho.
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
well it is, just not by lucky accident!
Yes. I agree. But there you are agreeing that the species came about by change. LOL
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
The problem is exacerbated by how explosively sudden the major changes were, followed by 100's of millions of years of utter stasis as in the horseshoe crab.
i,e not all the time is available, as Darwinism once assumed, the windows for change keep getting smaller and smaller the more the fossil record is filled in, the gaps ever more abrupt.
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
If we are defining evolution as change in life over time, I agree, and so does Genesis!
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Can you provide the words, please?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
In the sense that different kinds of life appeared at different times, in distinct logical steps, just like physical reality- with animal life beginning in the ocean and culminating with mankind,
Science has validated all this pretty emphatically has it not?
Science has validated all this pretty emphatically has it not?
siti
Well-Known Member
I don't know how anyone could possibly have calculated that. We currently know of less than 2 million extant species - possibly as few as 1.5 million if we were able to remove all the described species that are actually duplicates of species already known by another name. And we have reliably identified about 250,000 additional species from fossils. We really don't know how many species there are now - it might be 10 million or it might be 50 million or even more if we were ever to be able to count them all.
That there have been mass extinctions in the past is a matter of fossil record - many of the 250,000 fossil species identified disappeared abruptly from the record along with many others. The causes of these mass extinctions are not conclusively known, but that they happened is irrefutable.
That there have been observed speciation events is also irrefutable. Here's a Scientific American blog post that refers to some examples. In any case, your argument that we should have seen this in 6000 years (by which I presume you refer to the period of recorded human history) is disingenuous - we have only been looking for it for about 150, and at the genetic level for about half a century or so.
The rate of change is of course very variable, but bacteria divide between about every 10 minutes and every day - so if we take something in between - say every six hours, then for most of the 3.8 billion years that life seems to have existed on earth, there have been over 5 trillion generations which (with average mutation rates) corresponds to more than 15 billion random genetic mutations in the direct genetic lineage of each individual bacterium alive today. Since an average bacterial genome has only a few million base pairs, that means its entire genome has changed completely at least several thousand times during the course of evolution.
Of course more complex life forms undergo many more mutations per generation and something as complex as a human being can expect to accumulate an average of 64 genetic mutations per generation meaning that each individual human alive today will have about 640,000 random genetic mutations in her direct human lineage since our species emerged about 200,000 years ago and close to 20,000 mutations in the 6000 years since we started writing stuff (and nonsense) down for posterity. Not all of these changes are passed on, but some are and some turn out to be the difference that makes a difference. I think all of that easily adds up to sufficient time for many millions of species to emerge. For example, the genetic differences between homo sapiens and chimpanzees adds up to about 50 million base pairs. Suppose the mutation rate per generation is about 50 (less than the 64 per generations for humans at present) and chimps reach puberty at the age of about 8-10 so lets say each generation is separated by about 15 years, that means about 15 million years would be required for the difference we now observe to emerge. That means that the divergence of our lineage from that of modern chimpanzees began about 15 million years ago (according to my very rough estimation).
And bear in mind that humans and chimps are among the longest lived and slowest reproducing species ever to have existed. For other creatures, the process would be even faster. 3.8 billion years is an incredibly long time and the numbers game is definitely on the side of evolution.
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Yet you have no real proof for any of that. I see you expressing exactly what science has taught you to believe.....so how are you different from me?
Watching the video that Sapiens posted, I am bemused by the contents as I think it proves what we are saying so much more than it does for what you guys believe.
How much of what is presented as "evidence" in that video is not just assumption presented as fact? Two separate species of the same bird family does not prove macro-evolution. It proves that small changes can occur when species are separated by distance and time and adaptive change produces two species that no longer mate with each other in the wild. I am assuming that a mating is not impossible however. If you put a male and female of each species together at the exclusion of all others, perhaps they will produce a third species with a combination of their gene pool? That is not evolution.
A horse and a donkey will not mate naturally in the wild, but can be forced to mate to produce a mule. Can a mule produce another mule? No! Tigers and lions can also be forced to breed but what about their offspring? They are invariably sterile. It is the end of the genetic line. I think a more thorough investigation into hybrids is in order here. Genetic barriers do exist.
Well, I just presented some but you have no evidence that there isn't a broader barrier.
And you don't see that your own argument applies equally to evolution. If you can't believe in a being you cannot see, then how can you believe in a process that nobody has ever witnessed?
You speak about "religious indoctrination" and yet say that the woman's arguments are based on academic "tradition" and "good faith arguments"? Am I the only one who can see the humor in that?Which would be fine if science actually had the goods to dismantle belief in an Intelligent Designer. But all they have done is weave a good story, misinterpret some fossils and fabricate the result of genetic information and bingo!
They swapped one unprovable belief system for another, chiding believers in creation for having no "evidence" whilst at the same time introducing their own invented story, which also has no real evidence.
Those who wanted to get out from under the rules that a Creator might enforce were now "free"....
Man has used his 'freedom' as an excuse to become inhuman. The world is a wonderful place, but unfortunately many of the humans who live in it are not so wonderful, making life hard for everyone. Falls short of actual, factual evidence......can you provide some IANS? You know, the kind of evidence you say science has for evolution....that doesn't rely on belief or suggestion or conjecture? That video amply exposes exactly what I have been saying all along....listen to what is actually said rather than what you think she is saying.....
Oh dear. You must have been desperate to ditch any connection to your former religion. If you fell for the story with no actual solid evidence and a lot of unprovable suggestions then you apparently swapped one fairy tale for another. How much does it take to "convince" people of anything when they actually want to believe it? Ask the advertising industry about perception management and good marketing......
You are right....like you, I have been on both sides of this argument too. The evidence for me had to gel with what is in my mind and also what is in my heart. I was raised with creation at home and in church...I went through High School and was taught evolution and it sounded so convincing I was in two minds. It wasn't evolution that swayed me to leave the church though.....it was all its other teachings and practices. After I left school, I also left the church, immersing myself in science's explanation for the natural world and everything in it. But something was missing and I could not put my finger on it.....I finally realized what it was......I saw that the evidence for evolution was not as supported as science claimed. I was in a state of indecision for quite some time, but the more I studied the natural world, the more I saw deliberate design and purpose. I figured that if man designs things with a purpose using his intelligence, then the Creator had to have done the same thing. These design in living things was no accident.
Not long after that conclusion I met JW's. I was looking to reinforce my feeling that an Intelligent Designer had to exist, but didn't have the reasoning skills or the evidence to support my conclusions. They provided all that I needed, dispelling the misguided belief that creation was a 6 literal day event. Their explanation was not fairy stories but agreed with both true science and the Bible. I did not have to sacrifice one for the other.
And I won't find evidence convincing if there is no real evidence.......ya know...?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
Sure, just as the apple falling from the tree was the same process that created solar systems- so the theory went.
We all understand the logic and attraction of theoretical extrapolation, but reality ain't necessarily so simple!
In fact it's necessarily not. But you have to dig a little deeper
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